I'm active duty Coast Guard and although I'm not an "airedale", I've
flown with them in the past. I've never heard of the chrome plating
issue, but when they worked on the C-130's they had tool chests that
used the foam cutouts for their ALL the tools they carried in the chest.
Like what was mentioned earlier, if a tool was missing, the aircraft
didn't fly until they found it.

On a side bar, back then one of our (non-airedale) bitches against the
airdales was they could obtain Snap-On and Craftsman tools, and we had
to only buy real junk as the good stuff wasn't available to us. If we
tried to order Snap-On or Craftsman, the order would be canceled or a
junk tool brand would be substituted. I'm talking discount store
quality tools here. Since then the system has caught up with the times
and we now can order what we want.

Dave Young