Hi Scott,
Well it's certainly looking stunning so far.
All the original fasteners were zinc plated and bright dipped which is a process straight after the zinc bath.
Nickel has a bit of a habit of going really yellow and eventually allowing rust penetration. Zinc has far better anti-corrosive properties. Nickel is also rather brittle.
Nickel is always used in the chrome plating process as being the surface brightner under the flash of chrome that's put over the top.
Anyway I was just wondering why you have the reel installed ? is this just for the photos and then removing it again to drop it of at the machine shop to be sharpened along with the bed knife ? as I hope that's you process.
Cheers,
BB.
PS. I will say that as of late we are now seeing some really good restorations being done here at the ODK. Yours is no exception, it's superb.
