The rear license plate bezel on my 70 in fairly pitted and could use some help.
How does NOS chrome from GM compare to a replating to street quality? I know it wouldn't make show quality. I see where a few of the Vette suppliers offer NOS. I am not interested in NCRS, only a really nice Vette when the journey is over--if there is such a thing :p:

SEMPER FI--1970 Dave

 

I think you'll find it's a lot cheaper to just replace smaller pieces such as bezels and such with repro's. If what you get is below your standards, send it back till they get it right :yesnod: works for me :cheers:

 

Dave, the bezel is still avaliable from the General! It is a duplicate of the origional, the part # is even in the same place, must be the same mold? Thad

 

Has anyone had any large items chrome plated such as fiberglass side pipe covers?? :confused:

 

Fiberglass can't really be plated the way metal is. Chrome plating requires copper, then nickle and finally chromium layers. One way of doing it is to paint the covers with epoxy based paint that has a very large amount of pure powdered copper in it, dust more powdered copper over the piece in smooth layer. After it dries knock off the loose powdered copper. Then polish the painted layer with 1500/2000 grit wet sandpaper.
Then you can take it to a plater and they can plate the piece, with copper, then nickle then chromium. That's the method that they used to use for non-metallic objects for the last 50 or 60 years (if you are old enough you might remember "bronzed baby shoes")
I used this method 35 years ago when I was into building model cars, to plate small plastic pieces. I never tried it on anything larger than a couple of inches square.
There is another method called vacuum flash plating, that's how cheap plastic things are plated. It is actually vaporized aluminum, I'm not sure how it is done, exactly, but I think is sort of done like powder coating, exept it is done under vacuum. The plastic piece or something under it is given a negative charge, then positively charged aluminum is applied by a vaporizing it with an electric arc. The vaporized aluminum settles on the charged piece and melts into the surface and leaves a smooth coat a few atoms thick on the surface.
This probably more than you wanted to know, but I'm bored and not tired enough to go to bed yet.
There are a couple of places that will plate plastic, I think one is in the Chicago area, and the other is around Dallas/Ft. Worth. I found them searching the net. After checking the prices they advertised for doing interior plastic trim, I decided that if I ever got sidepipes I'd spring for the real metal covers or do like a bunch of guys and paint them with very high gloss silver paint, clear coat them, and buff to a nice shine. Several guys here have done that and the pipes look great. Some guys have painted theirs to match their cars and they look great also. Sidepipes look great no matter how they are colored or plated.

 

Dave,

GM Chrome plating (for both production and service parts) as a general rule is lousy... And that's being kind. Exterior chrome is generally shiny, but typically very wavy as well and occasionally the plating isn't very consistant. The license plate bezel is a good example... Many NOS pieces have areas where the copper plating under the chrome is evident. Engine compartment/chassis chrome is typically industrial quality with very little done in the way of preparing or finishing. Maintaining this "poor" finish is important for NCRS/Bloomington Gold judging, but from your post it sounds like that isn't what you are shooting for.

Aftermarket plating (from a reputable plater) is of much higher quality. The preparation and finishing required to achieve this quality comes at a price though. To use your license plate bezel as an example again, the zinc die casting used for the bezel has a tendency to pit (as you noted) and while it can be repaired, it is probably more cost effective to buy an NOS or reproduction part. Replating should be reserved for high dollar original parts that are no longer available (or are cost prohibitive to replace) or if you are plating a large batch of parts (which makes the job more cost effective for both you and the plater).

Reproduction parts are another possible solution. The finish is usually good, but the risk you run is that the part may not appear or fit exactly like the original. This may be a viable solution to your problem.

Good luck with your decision Dave!

Thad,

Get that bezel while you can... Hard to say how much longer GM is going to keep it in the parts books. :)

Looking forward to the Regional in LA next year!

Steve,

Excellent description of the methods used to chrome plate plastic/fiberglass. I had made some inquiries about reproducing a part that required plating plastic... I got the crash course from the platers that I talked to!

Regards,

 

One thing to remember about chrome is that, when on steel, the steel will rot under the chrome. Those tiny pin holes that you can see in rusty patches of chrome can actually have bad rot in the steel underneath (electrolytic effects cause it, I think). When the original chrome is stripped off then the rot underneath is exposed & will need polishing out. This ramps up the cost of re-chroming & on thin/small pieces can be a problem as the polisher could end up with a wafer thin piece of metal. They can copper plate & polish it until the copper has filled all the pits in, but you'll pay for it. To make things even worse, these little rot patches often occur in corners and hard to get at places. Very often the polisher can't be bothered to change to tiny mops & spend ages polishing them out & you'll end up with mottled chrome in those corners & quite often a different shaped piece of metal to what you sent off! This is also getting to be a long reply coz I'm bored as well (but I'm at work)!!! After 20 years of getting stuff re-chromed I've learnt that it's a bit of a lottery on whether the chrome comes out as good as you hoped for & my experience is to just buy a new part if it's a small piece. Even large parts such as m/cycle wheel rims can be a PITA getting re-chromed. If the chrome is really rotten then the cost of polishing, applying a layer of copper, polishing, then repeating until it's good enough to nickel & chrome will cost more than a new rim made in polished stainless!! If the chrome has just gone dull then a good platers should be able to do a good job on it.
Having said all that, I'm currently having some of my Vette bits re-chromed, but that's only because the price of new parts over here is a lot more than over your side of the "pond". It'll probably all end in tears though.....
In short, re-chroming can be a nightmare. With small rusty parts you're better off buying new ones (at least you can check out the finish before paying)
:cheers:

 

Thanks guys--tomorrow I am going to give the" Zipper "a call--good folks to deal with. :yesnod: Last summer I ordered a wheel from them and there was more run out on the new rim than I had on the old original (I think some BOZO hit the curb a little hard) any way the folks at ZIPS sent a call ticket and took it back no problem and sent me a new one with a different build date stamped on it ( I guess most of the new repo wheels are made in Mexico and quality can widely vary depending on the date made)--anyway I will shortly have a new bezel with new screws on my baby. Thanks again for the advice--another kudo for the FORUM even though my internet provider uses grub worms to carry the signal and I get long naps watching posts load.

SEMPER FI--1970 Dave

 

Dave,
If you order from Zip through the Corvette Forum, you can get a 5% discount. It isn't much, but it usually pays for shipping.

 

:D :D :D :D Thanks Smokehouse--it's a done deal

SEMPER FI--1970 Dave


[Modified by 1970 Dave, 8:04 PM 2/14/2002]