Snoopy you may be right or not.
I have been at it now for over 10 months trying to get that color.
Here are the mojor problems I came across. After having spoken to
at least 3 experts ( men that have 25 years or more experience with plating),
they all agree that the brownish hue comes from an additive used in the black
zinc chromate tank. The item is plated yellow or clear zinc at first and then dipped in the
"black" zinc chromate tank. The problem is that this additive has long been
banned. They gave me the name but I couldn't pronounce it for the life of me.
It now boils down to what they call " artistic development". In other words
I have to locate a plater that is willing to invest moocho time and money doing
many samples with other chemicals. In some cases I have been given barely close results
but close is not good enough for me right now. The other problem is client perception.
These NOS latch pictures are of parts that are 30-40 years old and have oxidized
since day one. No one can be sure that they looked like that coming out of the tank.
Some are dark and some are lite. I am still waiting on samples and hope to get things
underway soon. I already have invested much on the rest of the parts to do these parts correctly
so I cannot stop now.
Jules