I think its French

Bieler..I never liked you

Very cool/interesting thread you have going here Tom! Thanks.

I contacted the ebay guy and he said he was going to give me more info and pics - but his scanner was out of action or something and he just hasnt done it. The part about the parts rusting worries me a bit - so I am going to now wait and see what we can learn first from Tom.

Geoff..I'm close to solving the rust thing..MORE TIME in the solution.. The bigger question is how to get the sparkle into the equation.. I was thinking of trying some metal flake from the paint world.. the finest grade made and see if it won't adhere along with the solution... Past that I'm at a loss for right now.
Ask the guy how he achieved sparkle

I've send a few samples to a local " black oxide" industrial style supplier and will report back soon on the results...

Well. In a nutshell the answer is NO This local company does a kickin' job of phosphating but its too good and too black. They don't do gray. It looks just like the new nuts & bolts you can get from AMK fasteners. In this pic the waterpump pulley (tall) is NOS GM, The low flat ps pulley is a Jerry McNiesh redo and the main pulley (blackest) is the one I just had done.

Here I'm holding the fan I did against a Jerry McNeish redo.. Again: Too black

Also expensive.. It cost $95.oo to do a small lot..

When the weather finally breaks I'm going to break out the BBQ grille and revisit the home spun version again

Tom, just a thought, why not do a BBQ at Carlisle and I'll bring a bottle of the phosphate and people can bring some small parts (or use mine) and we cook it up in Carlisle?
I have the same phosphate from same supplier as you got yours from.

I'm all for grillin' stuff up..but this year I promised to streamline the displays to keep it simple, concise and attractive... The wacko in me does like it though

I have all intensions of getting to the bottom of this sparkly phosphate thing BEFORE the Carlisle show anyhow...

Funny thing I noticed when looking over my new nut and bolt kits from AMK.. THEY PHOSPHATE THEIR BOLTS THE SAME WAY GM DID!!! Look at the metallic fleck in the washer of this bolt! Man would I like to figure out what that is!

It came to me in a dream last night!!!
GM and vendors undoubtedly had big tanks of phosphate to plate such a huge volume of parts.. These tanks were used for many different shaped and sized parts... I even bet they bubbled ( airated ) to help with consistency ( Gm didn't have a guy stirring thousands of parts a day )....

I think the silver flecks in the original parts are contamination! I think its all the left over machining metal from things like shearing, stamping and threading(especially threading).. It mixes in with the fluid and the micopieces actual adhere along with the phosphate! I sometimes put the "nut & bolt" order away when it comes in at work.. We dump the boxes of hardware into the correct sized bins.. Well, the bottoms of these bins are loaded with metallic dust that comes from the boxes that are emptied out... I bet this is the same stuff that makes the fleck...

Next time I mix up a batch I'll collect a bunch of it from work and add it to the phosphate pot.. Stay tuned

Tom
you'll find that stuff in the bottlm of a nail bin too!

Tommy,

I deem thee a CART member!!!

Camaro Anal Retentive Technician

Mike