Originally Posted by MakoShark72

Had mine done, along with all the other chrome, by a local plating shop. As I mentioned above, they were blasted down, re-nickled, rechromed, then I primered and painted the entire part, then removed the paint from the edges. No mention of anything out of the ordinary, with respect to the crates.. Its been around 4 years now and the edges still are perfect...

Originally Posted by 68/70Vette

From what I know, they are difficult to rechrome. The louvers are a cast aluminum alloy, not pot metal. Any re-chromer can strip them down; remove the chrome plate, the nickel plate..and polish the basic aluminum. For re-plating, the polished aluminum has to be anodyzed with a electro conductive anodyzing. After this specialized anodyzing plating, the part can then be nickel and the chrome plated. There are not that many shops that can do the electrically conductive anodyzing.

Originally Posted by 7T1vette

I believe that vacuum 'plating' process for plastic parts uses aluminum (rather than chrome). That stuff is good for interior parts; but put them outside and they deteriorate rather quickly. I think doing that for outside parts would require the part to be clear-coated to protect it from environment/UV.