Steven Swift wrote:
TW writes:


If you scrub, you will make a chassis that looks scrubbed. What I sometimes
do is blast the majority of the dust off with compressed air, and a gentle
dusting with a paint brush..

-Chuck


DO NOT blow off the dust. If it is Cadmium, you are poisoning yourself
and your work area. Rinse it off, but don't scrub. Then use a thin clear
acrylic to seal it. Very nasty stuff. Cadmium is a much more lethal
item than asbestos.http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/CA/cadmium_oxide

Interesting, but wrong!

Cadmium oxide is indeed deadly stuff, but it is a dark brown powder,
not white. Read the MSDS that you quoted. It is on the first line
under "Physical Properties".

The white powder on the chassis is zinc oxide, the stuff that is in non
PABA sunblock lotions.

It almost takes an act of congress to turn cadmium plating into
cadmium oxide. Very high temperatures, and air will do it; water won't.

As a welder, I potentially come into contact with cadmium oxide anytime
I try and weld a piece of galvanized steel. When steel is prepared for
galvanizing (zinc dipping), it is first pickled (acid etched), and then
given a microscopically thin electroplating of cadmium to prevent flash
rusting. Then it is dipped in zinc, or zinc electroplated. When you heat
the metal to welding temperatures, both the zinc, and the cadmium turn
into their respective oxides. The result appears as a very light yellow
powder. Light yellow, because it is mostly bright white zinc oxide, with
a very tiny touch of brownish cadmium oxide. As fledgling welders we were
taught that zinc oxide would give you a 24 hour fever, but was harmless,
but cadmium oxide would make you dead, so avoid welding cadmium plated
steel.

-Chuck