Shiny, Happy Cover...
Wow! That was quick!
Mmmm....chrommmme... *drool*
The electroplaters had to strip the black paint off in order to chrome the pump. The steel came up really well and I could have used the cover as a shaving mirror with the finish being so polished and shiny. I think there is a misconception circulating that having something chromed will magically clean up the surface, make it smooth and so on - this is not true. As any electroplater will tell you, when you are dealing with coatings of metal as thin or thinner than paint, surface imperfections are picked up. The moral of the story is, when getting things chromed, make sure the surface beforehand is exactly how you want it to look after it is plated. To use a computer term - Garbage In equals Garbage Out.
The cover came with ugly self-tapping screws that I wanted to replace. I also wanted an excuse to go and buy some taps to make all those threaded holes that I wished I had made earlier in the project. Worked like a charm and I tapped all the holes for M4 screws plus drilled and inserted rubber grommets in the base similar to what I had done for the HDD rack. Anti vibration being important with a pump.
A last wee job was to dremel off a couple of pokey bits at the rear of the base to make some room for my threaded hose fitting...
... which was trimmed some more and doused in black vinyl dye.
I also cut the mounting bolts to the correct length and pushed them into the base. The cut off threaded ends will be kept and used as threaded rods for other projects. Waste-not want-not!
Parts of the pump will still be visible so I masked it and sprayed only the applicable areas with black vinyl dye.
The original self-tappers that came with the pump are a bit of a contrast to the round head socket screws I used instead - especially when polished on my buffing wheel.
Wow! That was quick!
Mmmm....chrommmme... *drool*
The electroplaters had to strip the black paint off in order to chrome the pump. The steel came up really well and I could have used the cover as a shaving mirror with the finish being so polished and shiny. I think there is a misconception circulating that having something chromed will magically clean up the surface, make it smooth and so on - this is not true. As any electroplater will tell you, when you are dealing with coatings of metal as thin or thinner than paint, surface imperfections are picked up. The moral of the story is, when getting things chromed, make sure the surface beforehand is exactly how you want it to look after it is plated. To use a computer term - Garbage In equals Garbage Out.
The cover came with ugly self-tapping screws that I wanted to replace. I also wanted an excuse to go and buy some taps to make all those threaded holes that I wished I had made earlier in the project. Worked like a charm and I tapped all the holes for M4 screws plus drilled and inserted rubber grommets in the base similar to what I had done for the HDD rack. Anti vibration being important with a pump.
A last wee job was to dremel off a couple of pokey bits at the rear of the base to make some room for my threaded hose fitting...
... which was trimmed some more and doused in black vinyl dye.
I also cut the mounting bolts to the correct length and pushed them into the base. The cut off threaded ends will be kept and used as threaded rods for other projects. Waste-not want-not!
Parts of the pump will still be visible so I masked it and sprayed only the applicable areas with black vinyl dye.
The original self-tappers that came with the pump are a bit of a contrast to the round head socket screws I used instead - especially when polished on my buffing wheel.
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review
October 14 2021 | 15:04
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