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C
OATING
, P
ICKLING
& G
ALVANISING
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
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.