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The original part came chrome plated...very thin, but it had an outer layer of chrome. Would NCRS deduct points for having shielding with 'better' chrome plating? I don't know the answer, but if they did, it would reinforce my opinion of that organization in regards to supporting the preservation of Corvettes. Heck, they have allowed having two-stage paint jobs on cars that only had single-stage painting available to them. Nothing would surprise me.
Generally flash chrome is very thin wear service for industrial applications. It is a hard chrome surface .0002 to .0005 thick. A build of hard chrome can be .005 to .020 thick. Unlike a flash of hard chrome it requires a grinding operation to improve the surface and achieve a close tolerance. Here is a more technical explanation of chrome plating.
There are two basic types of chrome plating, hard (engineering) chrome and decorative chrome plating. Hard chrome is put directly onto the substrate, not on top of nickel plating, and is put there as a very heavy coating essentially for wear and friction reduction. People don't usually see too much of this because it's on internal machine parts. It is metallic in color, but more matte than reflective, and is usually not considered highly aesthetic or decorative. Decorative chrome plating is probably better called nickel-chrome plating because it always consists of a relatively heavy layer of nickel followed by a very thin flash of chrome. The chrome is abrasion resistant, and slightly bluish in color. Without the chrome flash, the nickel would be slightly yellowish and would grow more so as the nickel tarnished.
In candor, though, copper-bright nickel-chrome is not a very rugged finish for exterior use. OEMs would use a minimum of two layers of nickel and as many as four, carefully engineered such that the outer most layer galvanically protects the interior layers so that corrosion spreads laterally instead of penetrating down into the aluminum.
Not much luck googling it For somebody local. Most of the shops only want to do high-end stuff. I still would like to hear from an NCRS judge on what’s acceptable for this.
There is a company in Tennessee which will do it, they charge the same as triple plating, however I could not be more pleased with their work and service.
R&D Finshing... http://rdfinishing.net
I had them do PRODUCTION QUALITY CHROME which is only NICKEL and then CHROME and was not highly polished so it has fine scratches in it just like the factory original parts...
There is no copper plating first. and no highly polished rounded edges etc... I am going to have them plate my exhaust tips after I am done welding the beads around the back.
