Difficulties and commercial viability of chromium plating on chassis.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 30\6\ Scan059 | |
| Date | 30th October 1928 | |
| X1360 C. Hs. {Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} BY11/G.30.10.28. CHROMIUM PLATING. ----------------- With reference to the suggestion that we should chromium plate the first SS. {S. Smith} chassis, which incidentally is the one intended for R. {Sir Henry Royce} , we would like to make it quite plain that with the delays that chromium plating is involving us in at the moment where called for, it will be quite impossible to treat R's chassis in this way. We had already instructed one of the SS. {S. Smith} cars to be chromium plated. Incidentally we are doing one or two customers cars, and judging by the delay we are encountering in the latter, it would appear that chromium plating is still a long way from being a commercial success. Chromium plating technically has been a difficult proposal. We are aware that a number of firms have rushed in where angels fear to tread, and in consequence many owners of cars are, however, sadly disillusioned in regard to the value of chromium plating. There are a large number of possible defects in depositing chromium, all of which tend to result in either a porous deposit, an over-stressed deposit which results in stripping, or deposits which gradually go to pieces and disintegrate generally from the presence of chromic oxides co-deposited with the chromium metal. I am mentioning this matter so that it will not be assumed that chromium plating is a simple issue. In any case all metals have to be first nickel plated, this being even true of nickel silver. Without nickel plating there is no chance of chromium plating being durable, and the intrinsic difficulties and possible trouble are three or four times as numerous in chromium as in nickel. These difficulties are being overcome, but not easily, with the result as pointed out above that many car owners assuming that chromium plating is a commercial job have ordered it, and after some five or six months found that the deposit was practically valueless. We are watching this matter carefully from a technical point of view, and as agreed upon have instructed an experimental car to be treated in this manner, so that we shall be able to have first hand information as to the present state of the art in the course of the ensuing year. BY. {R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} | ||
From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).