conveying surface, wherein the inlet of the blast cleaning means is positioned such that an angle of inclination of a straight line be- tween the inlet and a point on the periphery of the conveying sur- face is less than the minimum an- gle of inclination.

POWDER COATING SYSTEM U.S. Patent 6063,195. May 16, 2000 H. Giesinger et al., assignors to Wagner Industrial AG, Altstratten, Switzerland

Powder coating system compris- ing a plurality of coating units arranged substantially vertically one above the other for simulta- neous powder discharge to a workpiece, which is moved with a horizontal component past the coating units; and monitoring means for each coating unit dis- posed for detecting a powder stream, which flows through the respective coating unit to provide a signal indicative of the flow of the powder stream through such coating unit relative to a selected flow value to indicate insufficient amount of powder discharged from a coating unit.

PREPARATION OP POLYMER SUBSTRATES FOR PLATING U.S. Patent 6,063,445. May 16, 2000 R.D. Stolk, assignor to McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, MO.

A process for conditioning poly- meric films having a thickness of less than 1 mil prior to plating a metal thereupon by an electroless deposition process, the condition- ing process comprising etching sufficient porosity on the surface of the polymeric film for success- ful attachment of an activation chemical used in the electroless deposition process by contacting the surface with an aqueous solu- tion comprising a metal hydroxide salt having a concentration of less than 2.5% and the aqueous solu- tion being free of organic solvents.

POWDER COATING BOOTR U.S. Patent 6,066,207. May 23, 2000 H. Arai et al., assignors to Honda Giken Kogyo KK, Tokyo

An apparatus for performing pow- der coating onto an article to be coated, comprising a powder coat- ing booth divided into an auto- matic coating zone in which coat- ing is performed only by an automatic coating machine and a manual coating zone in which coating is performed by a worker, said booth including a first recov- ering apparatus, which recovers, in a dry state, only that powder coating material in the automatic coating zone that has not been coated onto the article to be coat- ed; and a second recovering appa- ratus, which uses water to re- cover, in a wet state, that powder coating material in the manual coating zone that has not been coated onto the article to be coated.

CONICAL SPVreERlNG TARGee U.S. Patent 6,066,242. May 23, 2000 D.A. Glocker, assignor to David A. Glocker, Rush, N.Y.

A magnetron for sputtering a tar- get material onto a substrate to form a coating of the target mate- rial upon a surface of the sub- strate comprising a frusto-conical target off-spaced from the sub- strate and having an inner sur- face for being sputtered.

ELECTROLESS NICKELBORON BATH U.S. Patent 6,066,406. May 23,200O C.E. McComas, assignor to Biocontrol Technology Inc., Pittsburgh

A method for depositing a metal coating containing nickel and bo- ron on a substrate comprising preparing a plating bath having a pH of at least 10 comprising 0.175 to 2.10 moles per gallon of coating bath of nickel ions; 0.003 to 0.3 grams per gallon lead tungstate as a stabilizer; a metal ion com-

plexing agent in an amount effec- tive to inhibit precipitation of the metal ions from the coating bath; an effective amount of a borohy- dride reducing agent; and option- ally up to 1.05 moles per gallon of cobalt, immersing the substrate to be coated into the bath, electro- lessly depositing the coating on the substrate, and heat treating at 375 to 750°F for one to 24 hours, whereby a metal coating is produced having a Knoop hard- ness, using a 100-g load, of at least 1,400.

STAINLESS STEEL PICKLING AND PASSNATION U.S. Patent 6,068,OOl. May 30,200O C. Pedrazzini and P. Giordani, assignors to Novamax ITB S.R.L., Milan, Italy

A pickling process for chromium containing stainless steel com- prising placing the material to be treated in a bath kept at 30 to 70°C having the following compo- sition: 20 to 100 g/L hydrochloric acid; 15 g/L ferric ion; 5 to 50 g/L hydrofluoric acid; and additives selected from the group consisting of emulsifiers, wetting agents, polishing agents, and acid attack inhibitors; wherein the total amount of the additives is about 1 g/L of pickling bath, keeping the bath under agitation by a contin- uous air flow or equivalent agita- tion means; maintaining pH lower than 2.5; and feeding an oxidizer quantity suitable for keeping the bath redox potential at values of at least 200 mV, said oxidizing agent being selected from hydrogen peroxide, peroxi- dized acids, and salts thereof; and chlorous and chloric acids as alka- line salts thereof, said oxidizing agents being fed to the bath as such or as an aqueous solution thereof.

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