Please tell us WHO you are, WHAT you do, & WHY you want to know!

Abstract Questions are easily misunderstood and usually stultifyingly boring. And many potential helpers skip them because there is nothing to be learned from them. So, pretty please, with sugar on it—

• Spend time on your question. Tell us whether you're a 3rd grader or post-doc, a hobbyist or a pro, working on a watch dial or a Winnebago, doing one for yourself or millions in a factory, a new process not yet successful or something you've done for years that went south. If helpers can't even start except with long lists of "ifs-ands-&-buts", few will.
• Not "What will happen if?", but what are you actually experiencing?
• Tell us something we don't know! Say "my formula of so & so gives such‐&‐such a problem", not "I want the best formula".
• Interesting questions get answered! Say "I have a brass trunk from an ancestor's 1890's sea voyage …", not "How do I clean brass?". Say "I need the lugs nuts from my '55 Belair show car chrome plated", not "What shop does chrome?".
• Include a photo/sketch of the situation if you can.
• A pic of yourself encourages responses by personalizing things.
• Hurried postings must be set aside for editing — and may get buried under new mail.
  
  
• Ever since its founding in 1989, the primary aim of this forum has been to be a place of camaraderie & warm aloha for anyone with an interest in metal finishing ... and warm personal feelings are simply incompatible with anonymity. So, apologies, but we focus on helping flesh & blood people, and postings with fictitious names or just first names often get buried or discarded.
  
  If your company doesn't allow public posting, feel free to anonymously read everything here: this site requires no registration, no usernames, no passwords. We don't track you, and incognito mode is fine ...
  But retain a consultant for confidential help! Posting fictitious info poisons the well of civil discourse; please don't do it for a corporation unwilling to pay for confidential help and also wanting others to share while being unwilling to share themselves  🙂