when is silver chrome, really silver chrome?

[brill64]

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i've noticed in several threads regarding m9-p news announcements, many people talking about how the silver chrome as longer lasting, more resilient, etc.

 

my question: is the m9-p really silver chrome PLATED like my old m6, or is it in fact silver chrome PAINTED like my silver chrome PAINTED 50lux pre-ash., I wondered which was the case? i thought there were eu restrictions in place regarding silver chrome plating for environmental reasons? maybe this explains the small batch numbers? please correct me if i'm wrong but i think clarification might be useful or interesting.

 

for the silver-chrome, a PLATED or PAINTED version should mark and wear quite differently & may not necessarily be more resilient than the BP version. the BP M9-P is black paint then spray varnished. surely this would be susceptible to bright marks initially but then the BP underneath should brass very nicely eventually. thoughts or knowledge, anyone?

[jaapv]

Silver chrome painted Summilux??? I gues you are confusing this with anodized. It has to do with the base metal. The light metal on this lens is cannot be chrome plated, thus is anodized. The top plate of the M9 is brass, so it is plated. The gray and black ones are not painted but powder-coated. Older black paint cameras and soft-finish a-la-cartes are painted. I am not aware of the paint-and-varnish process of the M9P What is your source?

[wattsy]

As Jaap says, it's not paint. The M9-P chrome body has a high quality, slightly matt, proper chrome finish. It's very nice indeed. The black paint version has the same slightly dull (but very hard wearing) finish as the black M9. Both black M9 finishes seem rather different to the very tactile glossy black paint you get on an MP.

[gravastar]

................................................for the silver-chrome, a PLATED or PAINTED version should mark and wear quite differently & may not necessarily be more resilient than the BP version. the BP M9-P is black paint then spray varnished. surely this would be susceptible to bright marks initially but then the BP underneath should brass very nicely eventually. thoughts or knowledge, anyone?

When I carefully looked at the finish on my black M9 it had the appearance a very tough powder coat. The small individual fused globules of paint giving it a satin sheen. I didn't see any trace of a varnish overcoat. Mine is a 09/09/09 camera. It now has a small amount of brassing on sharp edges and the satin finish has turned shiny where I hold the camera and where it has rubbed against the inside of a bag. The finish is quite robust and hard wearing.

 

Bob.

[adan]

On the title topic - I notice a big difference between the silver chrome finishes pre-1980 and post-1980 (M3-M2-M4 vs. the first M6 chromes et seq.)

 

The old 1960-ish chrome finish was "grainier" and had flashes of color (diffraction or refraction effects from the grains, not real color, obviously). The post-1980 chrome is finer-grained and smoother, which is why it sometimes comes across as "paint". (I don't like it much - which is why I always stuck with industrial black-chrome bodies if they were post-1980.)

 

It's not just a Leica thing - old chrome Nikon Fs and Canon FTbs, etc. also have that slight "sandy" color-flecked texture - which also "feels" harder to my hands, whether it actually is or not.

[Washington]

I am not sure if there is such thing as''silver chrome’’. Chrome is just chrome.

From my motorcycle days I had to deal with many varieties of chrome finishes hard chrome,

dull chrome, semi-dull chrome, black chrome and highly mirror finished polished chrome -

which, I think, has now taken the name ‘’silver chrome’’….if it’s really chrome: because from

google most I see is ‘’silver chrome'’ paint.

The final finish on chrome is dependent on the surface finish on which it is ‘’thrown’’

(shop term for the application)….. and secondly how the chrome plating is finished…

highly polished to mirror shine or maybe bead-blasted for a dull finish.

There are also many different application methods which depend on the base metal

being plated. Ferrous metal which rusts takes a lot of work to achieve a mirror finish like

motorcycle exhaust pipes for instance. The operation goes like this: steel ground and

polished to mirror finish, cleaned and pickled in an acid tank,rinsed and dipped into a tank

of cyanide to plate it with copper… copper is like the primer in painting. Then polished again-

cleaned and plated with nickel. Again polished and cleaned…. then the final chrome which

when done is super polished. This is why it’s so expensive to have parts chromed right.

Some shops and suppliers started to provide chrome parts plated by skipping the copper

as the cyanide was so expensive to dispose of. This chrome didn’t last a year on bikes

before rust came through the plating. Nickel and chrome are porous… thus the copper.

[SJP]

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There is no obvious reason why we could not have real silver with a chrome plating, or platinum with a chrome plating, iridium with a chorme plating etc.

 

The platinum version would weigh about 3x more that the current lenses but that is the price to pay. I smell a market opportunity.

[Washington]

Having no experience throwing chrome over the substrates you mention I don’t know

if it would work or not. I see no reason why anyone would do such as surface chrome

looks just like chrome…. and chroming is on old and highly developed process as it

is.

[brill64]

I am not aware of the paint-and-varnish process of the M9P What is your source?

 

Thanks for your clarity, Jaapv!

 

my scource:

 

LFI "UNDERSTATEMENT", 5/2011 JULY pp.24 para.1, "The M9-P is available either black varnished or chrome-plated in silver."

[brill64]

As Jaap says, it's not paint. The M9-P chrome body has a high quality, slightly matt, proper chrome finish. It's very nice indeed. The black paint version has the same slightly dull (but very hard wearing) finish as the black M9. Both black M9 finishes seem rather different to the very tactile glossy black paint you get on an MP.

 

thanks but the BP looks different lustre and scratches

[jaapv]

Thanks for your clarity, Jaapv!

 

my scource:

 

LFI "UNDERSTATEMENT", 5/2011 JULY pp.24 para.1, "The M9-P is available either black varnished or chrome-plated in silver."

Ah -those wonderful LFI translations again

silbern verchromten Oberfläche oder einer schwarz lackierten Oberfläche

 

The correct translation:

 

Bright chrome surface or black paint surface.

 

And the paint is, according to Leica's data sheet:

 

KTL-Tauchlackierung

 

 

Which is a kataphoretic coating system.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Rip,

 

Thank you for the description of chrome plating you gave above. It was invented as you described it by someone who lived a short walk away from where I am writing this. His bother who lived on the same block he did invented the self starter for the automobile.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[delander †]

Bright chromium is not polished after the chromium has been deposited. The chromium layer is incredibly thin and just follows the surface finish of the layer below. If that layer is bright nickel, the chromium is bright. In the old days dull nickel was deposited and then polished, for the last 50 years bright nickel has been deposited directly from the plating bath which contains 'brighteners'.

 

Today satin nickel can also be deposited directly from the plating bath thus giving rise to a satin chrome finish which looks different to the satin finish achieved by mechanical means.

 

For zinc based diecast (M6 top plate)and brass substrates these are plated in cyanide copper, then bright acid copper, then bright (or satin) nickel then chromium.

 

A pore-free electroplated system gives excellent corrosion protection but is difficult and costly to achieve in practice. Just a single pore will concentrate the electrochemical corrision at that pore, quickly leading to an unsightly blister. By co-depositing fine silica with the nickel layer, millions of pores can be produced, resulting in only very slow corrosion at any individual pore thus retaining a bight overall finish for many years.

 

I'm not sure who invented bright plating but much work was done in Detroit by those companies supplying Ford, GM etc with plating chemicals and plant.

 

Jeff

[delander †]

 

 

Which is a kataphoretic coating system.

 

A cataphoretic coating system is similar in some ways to electroplating. The articles are immersed in a solution containing a suspended resin. A current is applied and the resin particles are deposited on the cathode (the article to be coated). The process is self limiting, as soon as the surface is completely covered it becomes non-conductive. The coated articles are then heated to form a hard coercive coating, which can be pigmented or transparent.

 

Jeff

[adan]

"I am not sure if there is such thing as ''silver chrome’’. Chrome is just chrome."

 

Probably true, but when it comes to Leicas (at least) some chrome-finished cameras are black in coloration, and some are silver. And one needs to distinguish between them at times.

 

You can't just call them "black" or "silver", because that raises confusion with black-paint cameras, or the element Ag. You can't just call both "chrome" because that doesn't differentiate the color.

 

If you have an equally efficient (i.e., not more wordy) way of distinguishing the different finishes, I'd be glad to adopt it.

[ho_co]

Since there's so much technical knowledge here: What's involved in black chrome?

 

I remember that when Leica started the choice of black or silver chrome in the M5, they made quite a big deal out of the technology.

[Washington]

Andy,

As I mentioned there is such a thing as black chrome. You may call it anything you

wish.

[Washington]

Howard,

I was never involved in the process so I don't know what makes black chrome black.

[Washington]

Jeff,

Sorry, but you are incorrect.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[StephenPatterson]

Hmm, Mr. Wizard (that's you, Rip), can you help me understand what Leica is doing now with these new "Silver Anodized" lenses. In my past experience in the electronics industry we always considered anodized aluminum heat sinks to be a minimal corrosion protection, while still giving good thermal conductivity (as opposed to powder paint). When we would get parts back after several years in the field they invariably exhibited extensive wear to the finish. Is this a good idea for lenses?

 

Please use small words and remember I got a D in chemistry...