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-----Optical Colors on Titanium
Hello from St. Louis. Ever see that cheap brassy metal used in cheap speakers, and a thousand other hardware items? It almost always has swirls of colors in the finish. We have some parts at work that exhibit a ''rainbow array'' of colors, red, green, blue, purple etc. It looks like optical interference to me, which may complement my titanium jewelry very nicely. What chemical/metal combination does this?
Joe Davisson
St. Louis, Missouri
1999
Hi, Joe.
What you are referring to is zinc plating followed by yellow chromating. With only a few exceptions (which we rail against here), it is not done to make something look like brass, it just *happens* to look a bit like brass. However, I doubt that you would want to zinc plate and yellow chromate your titanium jewelry, rather you want to anodize it. There are a number of letters on-line here on that subject, most notably letter #937.
Ted Mooney, P.E.
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Interesting, thanks! I think the parts we use at work are supposed to look like brass, but lately have been coming in swirly colors instead. :) Since it involves plating I'll be avoiding that process. Already anodize my titanium jewelry, but thought using the two metals together would look nice. Perhaps I'll scavenge for scrap metal for the meantime; seems like I could just "find" the colors I want. Have a nice day!
Joe Davisson
St. Louis, Missouri
1999
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