In the late 70/through the 80s, I used a platerewho would plate me a frame in 24 hours for only £14..it was cheaper than having them sprayed....s o I made a lot of all chrome=plated frames, mainly in reynolds 531 and Co lumbus SL and SLX, plus some on Ishiwata tubes.
As far as I know, none of my frames ever suffered a breakage of any kind..s o embrittlement wasn't a problem. I have just taken back into my possession a Bespoke "gate" that I built in 1982, with full chrome stays and forks..i t is in magnificent nick..no peeling nor fading. Much of the fantastic cond ition can be put down to expert preparation of the frame, fine polishing, a nd careful plating...AND to the great care with which the owner looked afte r the frame.
I used to have quite a few frames nickel plated too, and a small number fin ished with black-chrome plate.
One of the problems of plating a frame all-over in order to leave it as such, is the problem not only of polishing the tubes, lugs etc to a fine finish, but of getting the chrome into the corners and recesses of the fra me such as in between the chainstays and the back of the seat lug..under th e fork crown.
In the UK there used to be plating companies that worked entirely on sub-co ntract for cycle companies..and these companies knew well just how to polis h, buff and plate. These days all these experts have gone.
I suspect that some frame builders will not recommend an all-chrome-plated frame because they recognise the problem of plating in the recesses. In all forms of electro-deposition of metals it is extremely difficult to get the material being deposited nto the recesses..and it is all down to the manne r in which the electrodes are deployed around those areas. Nickel is easier to deposit in crevices than chrome resulting often in a goldish finish in such places rather than the full chrome plate. On every black chrome frame I made, although the frames itself ie the tubes could be shiney jet black, the crevices mentioned above were never darker than a dusky gold....but wha t a great colour that was.
It is because of this problem that most Italian frames that sport chrome st ays will have chevrons of enamel running along the chainstays from the brac ket. Similarly I recall that Colnago used to spray silver paint underneath his fork crowns.
Norris Lockley, Settle UK
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