Poeton Industries has been awarded a contract to apply Apticote 100 hard chromium plating to high-performance damper tubes for the suspension of the Mitsubishi Ralliart World Rally Championship cars.

The hard chromium application is described as an "extremely delicate job" by James Glover of SPA Design, the company that manufactures the damper tubes and other components for Ralliart. "It really is the most difficult surface treatment job we've been involved with" James commented: "and Poeton, with its combination of coating and motorsport experience, is the only company we've found that can meet the high standard we require". He adds that the damper tubes also have to be handled very carefully to minimise surface scuffing and avoid any contact with objects that might damage them.

Explaining the difficulties, he says: "The specification from Ralliart called for a hard wearing, low-friction coating for the damper tubes, which have very thin walls that need to be hard chrome coated inside and out to extremely tight bore tolerances.

The outside diameter also comes into contact with a fragile seal so the surface has to be free of any defects that might damage them".

The Poeton Apticote 100 hard chromium coating is one of a dozen processes that the damper tubes go through before they are delivered to Ralliart at a cost that runs into four figures for each one! Commenting for Poeton Motorsport Division, Neill Ricketts says: "We were delighted to accept the challenge from SPA Design, and happy that we could provide both the quality and the overnight service they needed.

It is also another example of how Apticote is helping motorsport companies win in the most demanding of environments".