When was nickel used for shiney parts

Some back story is needed here. I talked with a guy that made old style muzzleloaders by hand and for the fancy parts on them he said that he used nickel from "old car parts". He wouldnt give up the info on what parts or what years of "old cars" that he got them from. He said he melted the parts down and had wood form for the big parts and would carve out a design into the stocks and pour the nickel into it. this may be a taboo idea here, if it is I apologize in advance!
Later,
Kenny

Chrome plating is a 3 step process........first is copper, then nickel, then chromium. Nickel plating is simply when they stop at the second step. Nickel was used mainly before the 20's, but there were some cars that went into the 30's as I recall (I think Model A Fords of the 30's had headlights that were nickel instead of chrome.

Some hot rodders are using nickel plating again to give the car an old timey look. It is somewhat softer looking and not shiny like chrome plating.


Don

I'm not aware of any parts made from just nickel. They most likely would have been small cast parts. Nickel is used in chromoly to make it stiff, it's what gives stainless steel it's corrosion resistance property and it's used in plating. Nickel by itself is fairly brittle and it doesn't form well, ever bend stainless? It's melting point is about 2700f (same range as steel) so it would be pretty difficult (and expensive) to do at home. Separating nickel from steel would be equally difficult (the nickel content is normally very small as well). If it's a nickel finish you're after nickel plating is fairly inexpensive. There are industrial platers that will do the plating for you. To get a good price you'll need to buff, wheel, polish or sand the parts. The plating is like a "clear colored" finish so the way the part looks before is the way it will look after only nickel colored. Nickel plating is very corrosion resistant so it is ideal for exterior parts. If the parts are small you can even do it yourself. Vinegar, nickel oxide, stainless rods and a battery charger is all you'll need. Search the internet and you'll find some how to's.

Thanks for the answers! The guy I am talking about died 10-12 years ago so I cant ask him anymore question. Could he have been using something else and thought it was nickel? Something like a pot metal part/parts? Could that have been done in a home type shop? Dude was pretty crude in the way he did things but the end results were awesome!
Later,
kenny

He may have been talking about nickel silver, also known as german silver. Cars from the teens had radiator tanks made from the stuff. It's still used in reproduction parts.





http://www.thebrassworks.net/german_silver_radiators.aspx

Pure nickel racing ring and pinions are softer than tool steel. they make them of nickel becuase the softer nickel absorbs shock better. Unfortunately it wears out faster and is inappropriate for street use in gears
Nickel rod is used when welding cast iron because the greater malleability of nickel over iron allows the nickel to move as the weld cools instead of a more brittle weld material not moving and causing stress cracks in the iron.
I've never experienced Nickel to be harder or more brittle than steel.
actually chromium and molybdenum increase the tensile strength of steel making it stronger but more brittle. not sure the role nickel plays but I do know steel alloyed with chromium and/or molybdenum comes out brittle and must be tempered by slowly heating and cooling to restore flexibility or if you will remove hardening. annealing is when you totally remove all work and temperature hardening to soften the metal so it can be more easily worked.

when welding tool steel mig welding can be used without pre heat or post heat. When welding chrome or moly alloys of steel it is recommended the weld be tempered by heating and slowly cooling to remove the brittleness caused by rapidly cooling the weld as is common with MGAW welding.
Before the advent of modern tig, oxy acetylene was the preferred method to weld chrome and molly alloy for aircraft and racing use... stick welding and mig being reserved to mild steel

The ductility and malleability of nickel ranks behind steel. Tool steel is brittle because of the high carbon content.

I had to hit the books for this one:

Looks like there's more to it than just saying more brittle then... depends on which way it's tested.
Crush or pull, and hardness.
Gold is both malleable and ductile. It can be hammered without fracture and can be drawn into a wire without seperation. lead on the other hand is only malleable.

malleability and tensile strength and inversely proportional. the stiffer something is and less apt to bend or reshape...the more tensile strength it has.
tensile strength in pure minerals increases with hardness but manifests differently in alloys such as the situation where nickel one hardness behind steel added to steel actually increases the tensile strength of the steel by modifying the crystalline structure of the steel (iron-carbon)

Iron is so very useful because of the multitude of crystalline forms of elemental iron and the different crystal formations of carbon and iron each unique. It's what makes each grade of steel a different material, It's what makes understanding steel so difficult.

Gold while having a hardness of 2.5 to 3 same as silver and zinc.
lead has a hardness of 1.5 same as tin.

You could say lead is more brittle than gold because if you try to stretch it it breaks easier than gold...or gold is more brittle than lead because it has a higher tensile strength and is more apt to break than bend....
Both are true depending on which ways you were comparing the two.

So brittle, while being an easily understood street description of how easy something breaks would not (i think) be appropriate to compare things which break differently under different conditions

The Moh's scale is a measure of what scratches what type of hardness.

Looks like Nickel has a hardness on the moh's scale of 4 same as Iron. Steel scratches nickel, nickel doesn't scratch steel. steel is harder.

Iron is not steel Steel while being harder than iron is more malleable. it crushes forms and bends easier than Iron but Iron will fracture and pull apart easier than steel (less ductile)

Steel is anywhere from 4-4.5 (same as platinum) to as hard as 8 (same as tungsten and cubic zirconia) depending on the alloy and heat treat

chromium has a hardness of 8.5 just below carbide abrasives.

Steel is low carbon cast Iron.
High carbon steel approaches the carbon content of cast iron.
When the carbon content of steel reaches 2.0 percent it is considered cast iron.

Due to alloy elements such as nickel chromium and molybdenum which alter the form of the iron-carbon grain structure. tensile strength, and increased harden-ability are enhanced at higher carbon levels up until the point where it becomes cast iron at which point the carbon content becomes the dominant factor in the material's properties.

So the nickel in the rings isn't pure nickel. Pure nickel (99.99%) will shatter when struck with a hammer. Add just a little magnesium (0.125%) and wahla... you have a product that is malleable and ductile.

WOW! I thought it was a simple question! Thanks for the metalurgical lesson Torchman!!! Seriously! I dabbled in knifemaking a few years ago and understood the theories of compounds but didn't know the specifics! Thanks again for all the replies.
Later,
Kenny

I watched discovery channels how it's made on an episode of knife making and was left with a moderate understanding of the tempering process.
nickles and dimes...
Ron Paul said he could get the price of gas down to a dime, then he pulls out a dime and says this silver dime is worth about $3.50 in reserve notes...

Torchman,
"Steel is low carbon cast Iron.
High carbon steel approaches the carbon content of cast iron.
When the carbon content of steel reaches 2.0 percent it is considered cast iron."

Everything else made sense to me except this. I was under the impression that cast iron became steel when carbon was added. Are you sure you didn't mean to state this the other way around?

440Clark said:

Torchman,
"Steel is low carbon cast Iron.
High carbon steel approaches the carbon content of cast iron.
When the carbon content of steel reaches 2.0 percent it is considered cast iron."

Everything else made sense to me except this. I was under the impression that cast iron became steel when carbon was added. Are you sure you didn't mean to state this the other way around?

Click to expand...

No I had it straight just like you wrote it.
The 2.0 threshold may be arbitrary I'm not sure if the material goes through a physical change at this point or if it's just a benchmark.
the steel making process involves blowing oxygen into the molten cast iron to burn out the carbon.

The carbon got in there in the smelting process when it was changed from iron oxide to iron metal.
They don't add carbon to steel to make it cast, they remove carbon from cast to make it steel.

I myself used to think steel had more carbon until I researched it. I think it's an assumption based on the word high carbon steel.

Interesting to look up read the wiki's on white cast vs grey cast and why they fracture in lines or spider cracks
low and high carbon steel and the different alloys
and martensite and austentite (grain formations) then lookup cryonizing
it's really complicated and I don't fully understand it but I understand it enough for what I do with it.