Joy Beeson wrote:

ne plates with an alloy -- brass melts too high to "hot dip" as one
:does with zinc -- and it just now occurs to me to wonder how one goes
:about brass plating something as cheap as a safety pin.

Electroplating. You put the parts into a bath containing stuff
(cyanaide compounds historically, often less toxic stuff these days), use a
brass anode, and apply a current. Details vary, but that's used for
all sorts of thin coatings.

--
sig 71