Hi

I just had the front bumpers from my '67 rechromed at a shop in St. Louis. I have never had any parts chromed before, so I may have had unrealistic expectations, but I thought that the bumpers would come out looking like new parts.

The actual result is that the outside, visible face of the bumper looks great. The inside channel of the bumpers (the non-visible part) looks like crap - not chromed, still rusty looking; but I can live with this.

A huge problem for me is the outside corner brackets. These highly visible parts are still rusty - especially the insides of the bracket and the welded nut.

The plating shop told me a story about how chrome plating is directional and they could not do the inside surfaces on the bracket or the welded nut.

Is this right or is the plating guy selling me a load of BS ? Does anybody have pictures of a 'successful' replating job that I could show to these guys.

Thanks

 

Not sure what the guy means by plating is directional but saying they couldn't do the inside surface is BS. Basically the end results you get in chrome plating is going to largely reflect the prep work prior to plating. The worse the condition of the starting piece, the more it is going to cost you to get show quality results, if that is what you are looking for.

Assuming the part is straight and dent free, then first it needs to be stripped of the current plating back to the substrate steel. This is accomplished by either reverse electrolysis, or an acid bath. The acid bath will also remove and neutralize any rust. Some shops may also use sandblasting in the prepping process.

The outside surfaces must be free of any major pitting or defects before plating. Polishing of the substrate or other prep work may be needed before any plating is applied. Once the substrate is properly prepped then a copper plating will be applied. The copper will be polished to provide a perfect surface for the nickel plating which follows. After the nickel plating a final chrome finish coat is applied. This is what is referred to as show quality plating, or triple chrome plated, i.e. copper, nickel, chrome.

You could skip the copper process and get it done for less but you still want the piece to be completely rust free before applying nickel/chrome.

Don't expect the back of the piece to be mirror smooth but there shouldn't be any rust present on a newly plated piece and if any was rust present prior to plating it will soon come back.

 

Sounds fishy. I'd take the parts somewhere else and getthem done right. Every part I've ever seen replated was bright chrome on the outside and a duller nickel silver color on the inside where it isn't polished. The parts are submersed and electroplated so the "directional" story sounds like a story to me. Doesn't make any sense.

 

Plating is pretty much directional. Some companies do better than others of getting around the back side, but you are not going to get much coverage down on the inside, without some extaordinary effort. Most companies just clean up the metal on the inside and paint it with silver paint after it is done.

 

Most companies? Maybe "Goober's Krome Plating" over in Mayberry but I wouldn't go there.

Here are a couple of names that consistantly get high reviews and do it the right way.

www.paulschrome.com in PA
great explanation and photos of the process on their website.

http://www.advancedplating.com/ in TN

http://www.fini-finish.com/ in MI

There are other good platers out there but I have seen work first hand from these three shops and it's top notch.

 

I had all my bumpers done by Industrial Plating in Omaha NE. 402-344-4684. They did a great job all over. They repaired some dings, rewelded a mount, and did a show quality chrome job. The inside of the bumpers are clean and chromed, but not polished as you would expect. I was so impressed with the job that my brother and I sent all of the rest of our chrome items to them including vent window frames and center consoles. They repaired some corrosion and did a great job on all of it. Next, they're getting the grills since they are setting up to do aluminum electropolish.

 

I am not a plater but I worked in the industry. We were he best in a very large city and who ever was doing a show car or bike sent their parts to me for plateing. Plateing is Directional and will not easily go into corners or concave areas. You will not find any bumpers with plateing on the inside of deep areas. You can see this on many chromed items, chairs etc. Look around. That is not to say that the prep inside the bumpers should be sloppy. It should be sandblasted and the rust removed. Many places will apply some silver paint to the back of bumpers. That just shows that they give a sh#t how they're stuff looks when it's done. As you know, the bumpers are immersed in tanks. The last bath is water to remove chemicals. Naturally there will be some oxidation where the plateing did not go into. Look at the back of some new bumpers sometime. You could spend a bit of time to clean up the back of your bumpers and spray a good quality silver paint for protection. I like tremclad. The silver paint is sometimes used to cover up mistakes by some. The funny thing about being in the chroming business is, when shipped something we had done, it had better be far far better than it was new, no matter what a 'pos' it was when we recieved it, but if the same guy buys a repro 'pos' with a little bit of flash chrome on it with no attempt to to get it into the low areas and it rusts the 3rd time it gets damp, takes it out of the box and looks at it and says "what a 'pos'!" and then bolts on, no problem just because it came out of a nice box. Saw it all the tme.
Granted, there are some shoddy platers like anything else but don't be too hard on the good guys, it's a learning experience.
Blue67, if those exposed mounts are high spots and inside is real crappy you may have an issue.