What are the silver limiteds made of?

Are they solid metal, or is the silver surface painted on over another metal? I am wondering if there is a surface paint that could chip off like the black lenses, or if they will be more resistant to usage wear.

The silver limited are black limited that have had all the paint chipped off
--
Chris.

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Hi Leekil

I've got my FA 31 in silver and the FA 43, FA 77 in black. The silver 31 is, I believe, made of the same material but there is some metallic seemingly infused onto the surface and in my opinion it should be better at withstanding wear and tear than the black ones. Still, as I treat my FA Ltds with utmost care none of them show any marks yet so I cannot tell for sure.

Cheers,
Fred

leekil said:

Are they solid metal, or is the silver surface painted on over another metal? I am wondering if there is a surface paint that could chip off like the black lenses, or if they will be more resistant to usage wear.

Click to expand...

leekil said:

Are they solid metal, or is the silver surface painted on over another metal? I am wondering if there is a surface paint that could chip off like the black lenses, or if they will be more resistant to usage wear.

Click to expand...

I don't believe the black limiteds are painted. The barrels of my black DAs appear to be anodized, which is a very common method of protecting aluminium alloy components.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing

I expect the silver limiteds are also anodized, but not coloured. The anodizing process electrolytically thickens the natural aluminium oxide on the metal. Alumina is very hard - chemically it is the same composition as sapphire. An anodized coating is less dense and weaker than sapphire, but still harder than the underlying aluminium alloy. It needs to be porous for the electrolytic thickening to work, and the pores allow the surface to be dyed black (or some other colour - anyone for a blue DA limited?). As a finishing step, the pores will be sealed to inhibit corrosion.

The coating can be damaged if you hit it hard enough, so you may reveal the (silver) metal underneath. Such damage will be less apparent on the silver lenses.

HTH
--
Alan Robinson

Thank you very much for the information!
Regards, fredg

Sorry...you've all got it wrong. The correct answer is pixie dust.

nate_b said:

Sorry...you've all got it wrong. The correct answer is pixie dust.

Click to expand...

What a waste! The pixie dust mixed in with the glass elements is all right, since it helps the image quality, but why bother with pixie dust for the outside of the lens barrel? Surely a unicorn horn treatment would be just as good there and save some of the expense.
--
--DrewE