Hedley-Nickel plate- funny! I opened this thread because I had a near life-changing experience with nickle plating. Thought I would pass it on as a service announcement. Since the topic here is far from what I expected, I'll just say - if you nickle plate quality bicycle tubing, be very sure the plater heat treats it after plating. My experience - had a Columbus SL fork nickle plated. With bead blasting it looked very good on a ti bike. 2 years and 8,000 miles later, both fork blades cracked just under the crown. 1/3 and 2/3s of the way around. Hydrogen molecules had been driven into the metal structure by the plating process. A mild heat treat drives them out. Plater didn't mention heat treating though he knew, had the equipment nor mentioned that it would be an additional $30 (which I would have paid in a heartbeat). I learned this from the builder who took my fork to an engineering professor who specialized in metallurgy forensics. (When I showed the fork ot the builder, he tore off the 2/3s crack blade with his bare hands. I'd just descended 2000' on it.)
The red fork you see on my photo is conservative painted 531 that replaced it.
So, to come back to topic and sum up - don't ride Hedley-Nickel plate road on un-heat treated nickle plated frame! Please!
