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Magnesium plating for restoration finishing and protection

Concerning Magnesium wheel hubs from Czechoslovakia, circa 1967-1975. In particular, I restore CZ brand off road motorcycles and in doing so, the wheel hubs have always been a problem to reproduce the original "bright lt.gold" appearance the factory produced while making these hubs in the molding process.

31860-1 31860-2

Nobody knows what the actual mold release powder properties were that caused this bright finish. All we know is that while preparing the molds for raw material pourings, the molds were coated with a "blue powdered material". Once the castings were cooled by a water wash and removed from the mold, they came out with a beautiful bright gold finish. This finish wasnt very robust and fades quickly and over many years causes the magnesium surface to oxidize and pit badly. Short of powdercoating, is there a preferred inorganic liquified dipping process that may semi-reproduce this gold appearing finish?

Eric Johnson
Motorcycle Restoration - Walnut, California, USA
2004

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