The best chrome plating I have ever seen was done by Custom Chrome Plating Inc. I had an aeroplane control stick replated and it was ridiculously perfect and absolutely flawless! Concours quality. The stick was relatively short and made out of 4130. Price was high at $125. This company does a lot of plating for the Pebble Beach vintage car crowd. They have a web site at http://www.customchromeplating.com
Mike Short, Austin Texas
On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 22:29:29 EST ABikie@aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 1/6/2004 10:06:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> sachs@erols.com writes:
> response to Jose Fonseca's question, Steve Maas wrote:
>
> There are lots of shops that do chrome plating of car and motorcycle
>
> parts; check the yellow pages of your phone book. The one time I had
> a
> fork replated locally it cost $45. You can also go to places like
> Cyclart, but they are more expensive. Chrome plating isn't cheap,
> unfortunately.
> ----------------------
> In my opinion, the reasons chroming isn't cheap are important, and
> I've been
> reluctant to again ask for it to be done.
>
> First, you must have someone experienced. Decades ago, we got the
> "best"
> custom motorcycle shop in the area to re-do Beloved Spouse's 61
> Atala. Despite
> his drilling oversized holes for draining and flushing the nasties,
> one seat
> stay still rusted out later. They MUST be religious about cleaning.
> In
> addition, the surfaces were not particularly well polished.
>
> And that is the second point: Polishing is one key to good
> appearance.
> However, too much and you get serious dimensional change (yeah, they
> got the burrs
> off that bolt head, but the hex faces are not the same length -- or
> angles! --
> any more, and it only takes a crescent wrench now.) Too little, and
> you will
> "fossilize" and preserve some rust pits, scars, etc.
> In the "old days," people valued full chrome Paramounts so highly
> that some
> were done after-market. These always had rough bottom brackets,
> since that
> area had so many places that were essentially impossible to reach.
> At least that
> was the Urban Legend back then...
>
> Next, I'd at least want to raise a couple of points that are
> more-or-less
> ethical. Polishing is dangerous work, since the belts and wheels
> work by
> grinding, and like to grab and hurl stuff. Chroming involves lots
> of pretty toxic
> stuff, which requires fairly expensive reclamation and/or disposal
> to protect
> the environment.
>
> So, I suspect that the next time I have some done, it will be for a
> real wall
> queen that is ready to be looked at but not ridden any more.
>
> I guess I'm being a bit contrarian, maybe to rationalize my
> unwillingness to
> retire the olde (38) paramount, whose headset needs a visit to the
> dentist or
> chrome shop or both...
>
> harvey sachs
> McLean VA
> I'll take a short chime here. We were commissioned to have a cinelli
>
> SuperCorsa chromed at a former shop with which i was involved in
> 1978.
> Alexandria Metal Finishers was chosen but with the fine lugs they
> wanted me
> to be the responsible one and remove the old chrome- with abrasive
> paper and
> cloth.
> We were only doing lugs (and the necessary tubing in proximity
> that's
> required.)
>
> I first went to United bumper platers because they did a super job
> welding
> cracks, restoring, and plating the two bumbers on my '46 chevy panel
> for $35
> each about 8 years earlier, but their work was more industrial.
>
> Long story short, I dynafiles and emery-clothed those lugs to the
> point that
> therre was not much left. I never heard back from the customer but
> it seemed
> that with any stress the lug would have yielded. Chrome, the platers
> bark,
> simply mirrors the finish it plates. It must look like chrome before
> it's plated
> with chrome.
>
> In my motorhead and scooter days, there was the belief that West
> coast chrome
> was different from East coast. One was warmer, the other bluer.
>
> Larry Black
> Mt airy, Md
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit http://www.juno.com to sign up today!