My wife's sister visits the Maasai tribe in Tanzania and is trying to help them get their cottage industry off the ground. They make and sell beaded items as shown below and buy goats with the proceeds. The problem is rust on the wires (it doesn't show in the picture). So we have two issues- how to clean the existing inventory, which is considerable, and what type of wire to use that might be more corrosion-resistant but still malleable enough to enable them to fabricate the items. The wire they use now varies from 0.022 to 0.075 diameter.
As to the first problem, any kind of mechanical removal, like blasting, would damage the beadwork. My thoughts were to possibly brush electroplate over the larger exposed areas of wire. The rust isn't so bad- very light surface rust- that it would prevent a decent plating. But I don't know anything about electroplating. Any type of masking off portions of the figures is unworkable, as there are too many already fabricated.
I don't have the ASTM specs on the current wire, and am not sure it is even attainable. It may be something they are purchasing at a local feed store. Cost is obviously a factor, so we can't recommend Inconel or 17-4PH, which wouldn't work anyway. If anyone has any ideas, they would be appreciated.
Topic: Any metallurgists out there? Have a manufacturing problem (Read 946 times)
