Hey there! *waves* was thinking, if it needed the increased strength, you could use a vacuum pot method & use inductive/ir/microwave heating & vibration from ultrasonic transducers to reduce internal occlusions & crack propagations. I was thinking of using a technique like this to "forge" a head piece for a l28 engine to turn it cross-flow. But ever the worry wart & also wanted/needed to make sure to nickel form it in to further driver nickel deeper into those areas & cut down on the total amount of cost. Boron nitride only goes so far for getting into aluminum, same for other versions. Although! Silicon carbide was the one I was thinking of settling into for aluminum thanks to silicon being great, bonding-wise, for aluminum. The main thing is having to energize the aluminum (meaning hit it with a dc power supply) while shoving in hydrogen & I turn positively charged, this tend to scrub the oxide layer off & allows for the nickel plating to better dig in after the silicon carbide electroless plating from caswell inc.
It might help you out.
