PLATED WARE. The plating or coating of one metal or alloy with another is extensively practised in metal working. In some cases the coating metal is a valuable protector from oxidation, <fcc., of the underlying metal; in other cases the properties and advantages of two metals— such as strength and lustre—are combined in one object; and more frequently a cheap and inferior body by a superficial coating gets the appearance of a more valuable and important metal. The art of plating was originally applied to the production of imitation silver plate, whence the term “plating.” The original method of silver plating consisted in attaching, by a kind of autogenous soldering, thin plates of silver to the opposite surfaces of a prepared ingot of copper alloy or of German silver. The silver plates were firmly wired to the ingot and submitted to a soldering temperature in a plating furnace, in which the surfaces became firmly united. Subsequently the ingot was rolled down to a sheet in which the relative thickness of the metals was maintained, and from such sheets “silver plated” articles were fashioned. This method of plating may be regarded as now extinct, being superseded by electro-plating (see Electro-Metallurgy, vol. viii. p. 114). Recently, however, cooking vessels, <fcc., of iron plated in an analogous manner with nickel have come into use (see Nickel, vol. xvii. p. 488). The plating or casing of iron with brass is extensively practised in the manufacture of stair-rods, curtain and picture rods, and “cased” tubing for upholstery purposes generally; and in the manufacture of pipes for conveying water the body of lead is frequently lined with a coating of pure tin. The gilding of metals is a process analogous to plating, as are also the galvanizing of iron and ...