Can Alocrom make the appearance of scratches worse after treatment

Q. I have a supplier that has NDT and Alocromed parts and returned them scratched under the Alocrom.
They are claiming that the scratches were not caused by them but were made evident by the Alocroming process.
Can Alocrom make the appearance of scratches worse after treatment or are they lying to me to cover their behinds?

April 27, 2012

A. Hi Paul.

Most finishing processes, including chromate conversion coating, will emphasize scratches rather than mask them -- but that may not bring you any closer to knowing who scratched them, except that it happened before the Alochrom process.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET finishing.com Brick, New Jersey