Why are brass nipples silver?

[Donald Gillies]

[email protected] writes:

>"Wheelsmith nipples are coated with a unique intermetallic substance
>second only to gold for its corrosion resistance. Nickel or chrome
>plating, once the preferred coatings for many bicycle parts, was
>gradually replaced by superior materials, except on spoke nipples.
>Duristan produces a brilliant, shiny surface with a slightly blue
>cast."

>http://wheelsmith.com/index_files/spoketech.htm

>It would be nice if someone could explain what Duristan is.

It comes from the eastern european country, 'Waycheapistan'. With the
cost of industrial metals such as chrome skyrocketing, there has been
a big move towards importing more and more industrial materials from
'waycheapistan'.

my theory : Duristan is actually PCB-laced tungsten, very much like
the compound that waste management sold to the state government of
ohio, subsequently sprayed the PCB's all over the asphalt roadways
throughout ohio.

- Don "Boyoctt Ohio!" Gillies
San Diego, CA

 

[A Muzi]

Daniel wrote:
> just curious...

Yep, something's wrong, they're supposed to be plated brass.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

 

[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
A Muzi <[email protected]> wrote:

> Daniel wrote:
> > just curious...
>
> Yep, something's wrong, they're supposed to be plated brass.

"I am Uma from the Planet Thurmann..."

 

[jim beam]

[email protected] wrote:
> Carl Fogel writes:
>
>>> Why are brass nipples silver?
>
>> Brass spoke nipples can be plated silver or black (and probably other
>> colors), partly for looks, partly for corrosion.
>
>> Doubts have been expressed about whether plain brass nipples normally
>> corrode, often in conjunction with rants about cosmetic foolishness.
>> Spoke companies ignore both the doubts and the rants.
>
> I have no doubt because the nickel plated spoke nipples I use.

nickel is used as a substrate for chrome. it's almost never used on its
own.

> Flash
> tin plated ones I once used lost their tin (a sacrificial anode as
> zinc on corrugated sheet metal roofs that lose their plating)

tin is an element. in this context, using the term "tin" is highly
confusing when you actually mean zinc. and spoke nipples are not zinc
plated, they're chrome plated.

>and
> turned black as copper alloys do.

neither tin nor zinc turn black. not with oxide at any rate.

> The next step was that they turned
> green in winter

black /and/ green mean copper from the brass.

> and made themselves hard to turn, being corroded
> inside and out.

that's electrolytic reaction. surprised?

>
>> DT Swiss offers brass nipples in either black or silver, the
>> difference being aesthetic:
>
> I think they are both nickel that can be treated to be black, often
> called "black chrome" being mainly the nickel plate. Why waste chrome
> if you don't need it silver sheen?

because it can be turned black more easily. like anodizing.

>
> http://www.dtswiss.com/index.asp?fuseaction=nipples.bikedetail&id=9
>
>> Click on the black and gray rectangles to see the two different
>> colors.
>
>> Here's Wheelsmith's corrosion claim:
>
>> "Wheelsmith nipples are coated with a unique intermetallic substance
>> second only to gold for its corrosion resistance. Nickel or chrome
>> plating, once the preferred coatings for many bicycle parts, was
>> gradually replaced by superior materials, except on spoke nipples.
>> Duristan produces a brilliant, shiny surface with a slightly blue
>> cast."
>
>> http://wheelsmith.com/index_files/spoketech.htm
>
> That's pretty hard to take! I'll bet it is tenacious as well. Don't
> leave out any buzz words when writing this sort of stuff. Rick has
> always been an expert at this.
>
>> It would be nice if someone could explain what Duristan is.
>
> As I recall Stnnum is:
>
> # Alchemy Symbol
>
> # The symbol for the metal tin was sometimes interchangeable with the
> # astrological symbol for the planet Jupiter. Tin was also known as
> # stannum, the name from which the element's symbol is derived (Sn).
>
> Duristan would then be hard tin plating, if there is a hard version of
> this process.

"duristan would then be hard tin"???

1. there is no hard tin.
2. that's just supposition.
3. why tin brass when chrome is so much easier and more effective?

i think you're confused on the "tin" thing. there's hard TiN, titanium
nitride - maybe that's what you read about?

 

[jim beam]

[email protected] wrote:
> Why are brass nipples silver?
>
because they're chrome plated.

 

[Werehatrack]

On 19 Feb 2007 18:47:03 -0800, [email protected] may have said:

>Why are brass nipples silver?

Brass tarnishes. Nickel plating is easy to apply, and doesn't
tarnish. (Chrome may be applied over the nickel, but often this is
omitted; the nickel's enough.)


--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

 

[[email protected]]

Where's the hatrack writes:

>> Why are brass nipples silver?

> Brass tarnishes. Nickel plating is easy to apply, and doesn't
> tarnish. (Chrome may be applied over the nickel, but often this is
> omitted; the nickel's enough.)

If you don't believe that the chrome is usually omitted, just hold a
new spoke up next to something that is chromed. Nickel is yellower.
As for Duristan, dura := hard, durable, stannum Sn := tin. That there
is no hard tin was mentioned in my earlier post about Rick coming up
with great marketing copy. Tenacious tin doesn't cut it although it
sounds great for a lubricant.

Jobst Brandt

 

[- Bob -]

On 21 Feb 2007 05:04:24 GMT, [email protected] wrote:


>If you don't believe that the chrome is usually omitted, just hold a
>new spoke up next to something that is chromed. Nickel is yellower.
>As for Duristan, dura := hard, durable, stannum Sn := tin. That there
>is no hard tin was mentioned in my earlier post about Rick coming up
>with great marketing copy. Tenacious tin doesn't cut it although it
>sounds great for a lubricant.

If you assemble the alloy the other way you get Tenacious D - an ear
lubricant.

 

[jim beam]

[email protected] wrote:
> Where's the hatrack writes:
>
>>> Why are brass nipples silver?
>
>> Brass tarnishes. Nickel plating is easy to apply, and doesn't
>> tarnish. (Chrome may be applied over the nickel, but often this is
>> omitted; the nickel's enough.)
>
> If you don't believe that the chrome is usually omitted, just hold a
> new spoke up next to something that is chromed. Nickel is yellower.

absolutely not. i used to work in a chrome plating factory so am more
than passingly familiar with chrome, its nickel substrate, and their
appearance on deposition. nickel is white. just like the money in your
pocket. it's not bright like chrome, but bright is not a color. nickel
sure ain't yellow.

> As for Duristan, dura := hard, durable, stannum Sn := tin. That there
> is no hard tin was mentioned in my earlier post about Rick coming up
> with great marketing copy. Tenacious tin doesn't cut it although it
> sounds great for a lubricant.
>
> Jobst Brandt

 

[Chalo]

jim beam wrote:
>
> Jobst Brandt wrote:
> >
> > If you don't believe that the chrome is usually omitted, just hold a
> > new spoke up next to something that is chromed. Nickel is yellower.
>
> absolutely not. i used to work in a chrome plating factory so am more
> than passingly familiar with chrome, its nickel substrate, and their
> appearance on deposition.
>
> nickel is white. just like the money in your pocket. it's not bright like
> chrome, but bright is not a color. nickel sure ain't yellow.

You sure like to contradict Capital J, don't you? He didn't say Ni
was yellow, he said it was yellower than chrome. And he's right.

Silver is definitely white. Aluminum and tin are sort of white.
Nickel is gray, and it's got a yellower cast to it than most gray
metals, e.g. chrome, stainless, cobalt, tungsten, etc. Kind of like
titanium that way.

US "nickel" currency is only 25% nickel, but it is about the same
color as hard nickel plating. It's paler than the commercially pure
nickel I have worked.

There are a bunch of photos of nickel here, most of which show the
yellowish cast that JB and I are talking about:

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/028/index.s7.html

Most of the following photos show the not-yellowish color of chrome.
It's not paler than nickel, to my eyes anyway. Just more of a bluish-
gray rather than yellowish-gray.

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/024/index.s7.html

Chalo

 

[jim beam]

Chalo wrote:
> jim beam wrote:
>> Jobst Brandt wrote:
>>> If you don't believe that the chrome is usually omitted, just hold a
>>> new spoke up next to something that is chromed. Nickel is yellower.
>> absolutely not. i used to work in a chrome plating factory so am more
>> than passingly familiar with chrome, its nickel substrate, and their
>> appearance on deposition.
>>
>> nickel is white. just like the money in your pocket. it's not bright like
>> chrome, but bright is not a color. nickel sure ain't yellow.
>
> You sure like to contradict Capital J, don't you? He didn't say Ni
> was yellow, he said it was yellower than chrome. And he's right.
>
> Silver is definitely white. Aluminum and tin are sort of white.
> Nickel is gray, and it's got a yellower cast to it than most gray
> metals, e.g. chrome, stainless, cobalt, tungsten, etc. Kind of like
> titanium that way.
>
> US "nickel" currency is only 25% nickel, but it is about the same
> color as hard nickel plating. It's paler than the commercially pure
> nickel I have worked.
>
> There are a bunch of photos of nickel here, most of which show the
> yellowish cast that JB and I are talking about:
>
> http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/028/index.s7.html
>
> Most of the following photos show the not-yellowish color of chrome.
> It's not paler than nickel, to my eyes anyway. Just more of a bluish-
> gray rather than yellowish-gray.
>
> http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/024/index.s7.html
>
> Chalo
>
>
>
this is what we used to use:
http://www.inco.com/customercentre/nickelplating/uk_plating_chips/default.aspx
never looked even vaguely yellow to me, either as rounds or as plate.