[Chuck Moreland]

John

Our spring plates where originally Cad plated. Unfortunately, Cadmium is a toxic substance and the cost of plating with it has gone up dramatically due to disposal costs. Basically, nobody does cad anymore.

The modern alternative is yellow zinc dichromate. It does not look identical to cad but is a reasonable substitute. It also doesn't protect as well as cad, but it is affordable.

This is the same type of zinc plating that is commonly used on bolts, however most bolts have "clear" zinc which gives a silver color.

You need to get all the paint off. They will do an acid bath but it won't clean off paint. It will clean off light oil (not heavy grease) and surface rust.