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when is silver chrome, really silver chrome?


brill64

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I learned a lesson back in the '80s that the editors of LFI haven't learned to this day. When SAP AG first had their manuals translated from German to English they used native German speaking technical translators who, although competent, did not have an idiomatic grasp of the target language nor an understanding of nuance. As a result the first printing (I was working at Siemens at the time and was on the receiving end) translated "fields" (as in "address field") as "meadows"...

 

Regards.

 

Bill

 

Hi Bill - that's delightful - and a real reason for keeping the status quo.

 

From henceforth I will always refer to Fields as Meadows.

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With regard to LFI English version I notice the common use of the word 'motif', does this mean picture, photograph or element in a picture?

 

Jeff

 

I usually read it simply as "subject" - the thing being photographed, the subject of the photo. That usually makes sense in the context (in LFI, anyway).

 

I can get a "chain" of on-line translations that gives "subject" (english) = "thema" (german) and "theme" (english) = "leitmotiv" (german).

 

But that just goes to show that words go off in different directions within a language, attracting different conceptual synonyms, especially if they are used in different fields of occupation.

 

Field = meadow - for farmers

 

Field = little box to type in - for programmers

 

On topic - I have a vague recollection of my father (who was a Du Pont paint chemist before becoming, ironically, an English professor) explaining that "chrome" as used in plating was actually a transparent tough protective surface, and that the "shiny silver" stuff usually called chrome, on cars for example, was visible shiny nickel electroplate, covered with a hard transparent electroplated chromium overcoat.

 

Which - btw - goes to demonstrate my previous point. I'll bet "overcoat" translates very differently into german depending on whether one means "article of clothing" or "last stage in finishing the outside of an object."

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Andy,

Interesting that your Dad was a DuPont chemist. Did he have anything to do with

the development of nitrocelluous lacquer? (which changed the finishing of automobiles

from time consuming brush applied Japanning to spay painting)

Anyway, chrome is NOT transparent.

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Probably my memory failure - regarding "transparent" chrome.

 

He did, indeed, have "something" to do with nitrocellulose auto paints - but as a newbie chemist right out of college in 1940, it mostly amounted to being the "gofer" who went out to the outdoor "weathering" stations around Wilmington to measure how various formulas were holding up to wind, sun and rain.

 

That ended when he was "drafted" to work in the chemical end of the Manhattan Project (again at a really junior level; Army rank T/4 or so) - working on the triggering explosives (TNT) for the A-bomb at Batavia Natl. Lab. (now FermiLab) in Illinois, and later the uranium-refinement lines at Oak Ridge and the reactor at Hanford, Wash.

 

Used his GI Bill post-war to switch from studying TNT to studying FSF (F. Scott Fitzgerald).

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Andy,

Hell-of-an-interesting career your Dad had there alright. Golly, Delaware was/is

about owned by the Du Pont’s as I remember. I used to drive through there years ago.

My great aunt Lottie lived on her old family farm down the road in Snow Hill, Maryland.

I remember going down to the end of the Delmarva Peninsula to take the ferry across

the bay to visit my Grandmother in Portsmouth, VA….. being from the north I really did not understand what ‘’Colored Only’’ drinking fountains were all about! Yes, a long time ago.

As the Nitrocellous Lacquer was developed in the early ’20’s I doubt your Dad had anything

to do with that…. but it sounds like he investigated the weathering properties of whatever

Du Pont was providing at that time.

I remember that one of the Du Pont children blew up himself and half the county

in a explosive lab experiment gone wrong way back when.

Anyway, this brought back a lot of memories!!!

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Anyway, chrome is NOT transparent

 

Transparancy depends on the thickness of the layer of material. If the chrome layer you apply is thin enough it will be transparent. A German firm would know, as the same principle applies to Apfelstrudel pastry.;)

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On topic - I have a vague recollection of my father (who was a Du Pont paint chemist before becoming, ironically, an English professor) explaining that "chrome" as used in plating was actually a transparent tough protective surface, and that the "shiny silver" stuff usually called chrome, on cars for example, was visible shiny nickel electroplate, covered with a hard transparent electroplated chromium overcoat.

 

Which - btw - goes to demonstrate my previous point. I'll bet "overcoat" translates very differently into german depending on whether one means "article of clothing" or "last stage in finishing the outside of an object."

 

The chrome layer on decoratively plated articles is indeed very thin, but it is not transparent. You can see this by looking at the nickel plated item before and after chromium plating. Shiny nickel has a brown tinge, chromium a slight blue tinge.

 

Chromium plating has bad 'throwing power' ie the chromium does not plate in the recesses thus in these areas the nickel surface can still be seen.

 

The situation is slightly different with chromium plated from trivalent chromium baths. Here the deposit is browner. Commercial trivalent chromium plating is a relatively recent development, much of which has happened since I left the industry.

 

Jeff

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Jeff,

It’s been a long time but I remember some really complicated anode arrangements

to try and get chrome onto recesses and such. There was also some electrical device

that would switch the polarity at regulated intervals to help remove the edge build-up.

I forget what this was called… as I said: it’s been a really long time. cheers

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