OM4Ti to/bottom plates
I have an OM4Ti champagne with worn areas above the strap holders. The
centre of the areas are smooth, shiny and silvery metallic. The original
finish is brighter, rougher, shiny and silvery metallic. There is a greyish
'border' perhaps .2 mm across between the central area and the outer
unblemished finish. I was able to make a tiny scratch in the worn area with
the tip of a swiss army knife but it didnt feel as soft as aluminium.
That's about as destructive a test as I'm prepared to do! Asking OM sounds
the easiest way to find out. There are all manner of surface treatmemts for
titanium (http://www.timet.com/) and it could be that the treatment has just
worn off.
Incidentally, there is a technique which could be used to gold electro-plate
a camera without dipping the whole thing in an acid-cyanide bath. It's
called 'Gold Touch' and was developed I believe by the US Navy for plating
stainless steel. It involves connecting the metal to a power supply and
'painting' it with an electrode at the other end of the power supply which
is like a big cotton bud soaked in gold solution. I hate to think what the
power supply would do to the electronics of a camera though. They'd have to
be taken out first.
Speaking of fantasy customisation of OM bodies, you could go one step from
NASA's removal of the leatherette and replace it with PTFE textured in some
way and that slots into the body thereby avoiding adhesives. Or how about
those refractive tiles used on the Space Shuttle. I could probably knock
something up in my shed for a million dollars,-).
NB
I found that the gold colour of OM 'passed' stickers is soluble in pure
ethanol (96%, rest water) leaving behind a silver sticker. Luckily it was
only a teleconverter. It actually looks quite good in silver.
Robin M. Allen.
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