TPT July 2011

C OATING , P ICKLING & G ALVANISING

The protective specialities reviewed here developed as a necessity of the making of steel, which is no sooner produced than it begins to rust. Coating, pickling and galvanising – essential to the tube and pipe industry from earliest times – only gained in importance as the products of that industry have grown in value.

The rejection, on final inspection, of any

made object hands the maker a loss. When the workpiece is a high- end tube with, to quote a website for bike builders, “enough threads to weave your own tapestry,” the loss can be very steep.

Another Internet site, offering a primer on tube making, has “Pickling” as the next- to-last entry. That scarcely suggests pride of place for the homely old process; or does it? The final entry is “Packaging and Shipping” – the last link in a chain leading straight to a satisfied customer taking delivery of a perfect product.

Photo: Superior