Some mildly inovative wrenches

[sivlogkart]

That is particularly true for the sort of padlocks that have a lot of bolt heads near the key hole.

KJ

[Robojubei]

Sorry to bump an older thread, but i think this is pretty important!

You're right on when you say that galvanized steel should never be heated, but slightly off when you say why. Heating the zinc coating on galvanized steel actually releases cyanide gas. I don't think i need to say why that's bad. You should never heat galvanized steel if you can avoid it, instead, try using tin plate or mild steel. Both come in the same strips and mild steel is usually cheaper! If you are going to heat galvanized steel (:evil:DO NOT:evil:) make sure the area is extremely well ventilated and that you wear the proper respirator.

[Gordon Airporte]

Thanks for filling in there Robojubei. I was just going on what I picked up from a slightly confused google search. I do have a stupid question though, how do I tell whether I have galvanized, tin plate, or mild steel? It might be that I've been using tin plate.

[sivlogkart]

If galvanized it is a dull grey.

[gremtech2002]

Hey All!!

Just thought I would add my 2 cents here(for those that would be interested).

I spent 10 years working in the plating industry specializing in industrial zinc plating & aluminum anodizing...... galvanizing. For the most part in MUCH more environmentaly friendly than it once was....... 99.9% of the plating companies have gotten away from using cyanide and gone to an alcali based make-up. It's a more cost effective process and gives virtually the same appearance as cyanide plating. And it costs about 1/10 of what cyanide does when it comes time to responsibly dispose of the chemicals.

My advice is to buff off the finish off with a buffing wheel(like something like a brightex wheel). soak it in a bath of vinager (in a well ventilated area or outside) till you stop seeing bubbles forming on the surface. Or you can go with the good old stand by of hand sanding it until you sand off the galvanizing.

If you choose any of these..... and you want that "galvanized" type of finish...... you could look at a product available out the called Cold Galvanize we used to have it at the shop and was available in spray cans.

Hope this info can be of use to some people.

Cheers!!

And if anybody has any ?s about plating or the like drop me a PM.

[Robojubei]

d0ded0 has it. Tin plate is usually light and very shiny, usually with some lighter stripes. Glavanized is bluish-grey, and has a sort of a polygon pattern. Ducting is galvanized steel so if it looks like ducting or vents it's prebably galvanized. Mild steel is matte usually and dark dull grey. It also will rust because it's not coated. Hope that helps!