pair of outwardly directed grooves 38 connected by a flat base surface 40 note that the first dovetail slot 24 in fig3 has been sectioned through the radial centerline of the slot for ease of understanding the location of the wear resistant coating in the exemplary embodiment an anti wear coating 41 applied over the full axial length of a substantially flat surface 42 that serves as a transition between the convex radius of the dovetail tang 36 and the concave radius of the dovetail groove 38 it will be appreciated that there are two such laterally opposed transition surfaces 42 in each dovetail slot 24 see fig4 and that each slot 24 about the full 360 u00b0 extent of the row of slots is similarly coated in the exemplary embodiment for a stub shaft composed of a nicrmov alloy a thermoplastic aluminum pigmented coating is applied to a thickness of between 0 0008 to 0 0018 inch one such coating is commercially available under the name alumazite zd manufactured by tiodize co inc this coating or similar suitable coating prevents galvanic and environmental oxidation and is compatible with the nicrmov dovetail material the coating may be applied by conventional spray techniques recognizing that tooling must be adapted to access the underside of the dovetail tangs test results to.