A lot of people seem to think we have a bucket of shiny shit out in the back room and that we haul thier stuff back there and dip it.
Chrome Plating is actually a fairly complex process involving a lot of very detailed metal finishing work. I tend to gloss over most of it because it's not that interesting or I spent so much on learning the proceedure I consider it a trade secret. For example, when I say "sand" I mean sand with 60 grit, 80 grit,120, 240, 320,ect. This is a real nit-pickey business.
Decorative Chrome, Is what you get by plating a thin layer of Chrome on a highly polished surface of bright Nickel. The Bright Nickel is deposited on a layer of polished Copper. The Copper, which might consist of several layers itself, is the leveling and smoothing coat that we use to fill surface imperfections -it's sort of our version of primer.
The proceedures vary but if a part has previously been Chromed we first disolve the old layer of Chrome. Chromium is removed in an alkiline bath with reverse D.C. current. Once the Chrome is removed, we generally remove the old Nickel and Copper and some percentage of the subsrate as we remove the pits. If we encounter deep pits or sand through a casting pit on the other side we fill with a proprietary metall.
Then the part is sanded several times to remove imperfections and give the Cyaniade Copper a good griping surface.
Cyanaide Copper is nasty stuff but it's attracted to surface irregularities and fills in the fine lines . There are jobs that hang up at this step for days as we just keep repeating this step untill the surface is smooth. The part is then scrubbed clean and acid dipped to prepare for Acid Copper.
Acid Copper is great for smoothing and leveling the surface. After couple half hour plating /sanding cycles, the part is buffed and polished. Again the part is cleaned and rinsed and given an acid dip.
The next step is Nickel. We put the part in the Nickel bath for an hour and might buff it a little before repeating the clean /rinse /acid dip cycle before it goes to Chrome.
The Chrome tank is last and least. Your part gets just enough Chrome to color and cover the Nickel -usually less than 3 minutes of tank time. Chrome is so hard that that's all that is needed to protect the rest of the decorative sandwich. Then we polish up the Chrome a bit and ship it out.
We can handle some fairly big parts. Our large part line features 4' X 8' tanks, so if two guys can lift it we can probably plate it.
It should be noted that I don't do stress. Since we work with priceless, irreplaceable parts and people who are emotionally attached to them, I'd like to be real clear about how much liability we have. We do good work at a fairly good price but the trade-off is that we do it at YOUR RISK! We do a lot of antique car parts and they are particularly suseptable to hidden damage. There are enough high risk jobs out there that we need to be clear that if something goes wrong we will do 50% more work than you paid us for trying to solve the problem, but at that point you get what you get and we keep your money.
We do guarantee the Chrome itself. If your Chrome doesn't look good enough within a year, we'll re-plate it for you and guarantee it for another year. We'll even guarantee that some dumb-ass doesn't screw it up installing it -limit one per dumbass.
We will give you a firm price on all work before you send it. What we'd prefer to do is have you send pictures of your parts. Most of the cost in the work we do is in surface preperation. In order to quote accurately, I need to be able to see the actual piece that has to be plated. We can usually give you a price in minutes. Please include a size reference (ruler, beer can, business card) in the photo.
Check out our our Shop View Page. Plan "A" was to let you watch your parts move through the different stages, but it turned into a logistical nightmare and we ended up just dumping a bunch of links to pictures we take for inventory control. It does give you a chance to look over some before and after views of jobs that have been completed.
-Chuck
