I called a shop in Houston about rechroming 8 53 chevy grille teeth..He said depending on the prep work, $55-$65 a TOOTH..Is this right? I've never had anything chromed but it seems really expensive..No?
I had my 55 Plymouth horn ring rechromed. It's made of shit-metal, and took the shop 5 hours to buff (very carefully). The de-plating, and the replating are minor compared to the prep work.
You want sticker shock....I'll give ya sticker shock. Got my estimate for some pieces from my '47 Olds rear tail light bezel in really great shape as far as I was concerned $85 each guage cluster, perfect shape $125 glove box door, also perfect shape $125 pot metal side trim about 18 inches long, needs slight repair $275 each pot metal fender spear about 12 inches long, decent shape $225 each dash insert piece, width of the dash, good shape $550 '57 Caddy front bumper pieces bumper end $275 each bumper center $225 lic plate guard $175 lower bumper piece $575 Plating isn't cheap and not for the faint of heart. I opened the estimate and about cried. In the end though perfectly chromed pieces are breathtaking in my opinion and really sets a car off.
Holy Crap! I really didn't know it was that expensive..I guess with the environmental concerns and in order to make money that explains that...
denise mentioned the side trim for her car.. "pot metal side trim about 18 inches long, needs slight repair" this is what it looks like.. I had a pair rechromed for my olds.. total cost was about 325.. then I bought this NOS one on ebay.. for 29.99 yeah that kinda sucked
Around here thats cheep for chrome work.. cheep, still not very affordable.. I have about 600 invested in grill surround for my 53..thats 4 pieces.. They did some filling and smoothing on 2 area's that i modified...and it came out first rate..but, ouch!!!
I just sent 220 pieces to be chromed . 199 are for a 53 Buick Skylark that we are doing for a customer. The other 21 parts are for other customer projects.I should know how much $$ it will cost sometime next week. My guess would be $12,000 or more .
yeah mine is a 46 style trim.. (i liked it better) oh and actually the part cost 19.99, but somehow the shipping was 10.00 from TENN? oh well.. yours is the correct 47 - 48 i believe.. looks good.. jeff
Who are you using?? As far as I know it is..... will look even better when I get it back repaired and replated. This time I'm going to ask one of my stripper friends to paint the white inside. When I did it last year it ended up looking crappy and lumpy. I know for one thing I used the wrong paint.
price of chrome is just another reason to shave it. but the bright work is needed in those certan areas. the few parts on my 50 caddy where more then 3 grand.and i never did the bumpers
We have close to or over 9,000 in the chrome on the lincoln That was 6 yrs ago, so I'm trying to forget Those Big ass bumpers.There are two in the front and the back one, side trim, horn rim, misc window trim, the back trim panels from the bucket seats and misc bucket seat parts. Some pot metal that needed repaired. But Cutsom Chrome in Grafton, Oh. Jon Wright does a hell of a job!!!!! We toured his shop, I would have eaten my lunch on his floor that place was so clean!
Sent two pieces about 8 in. long an 3/4 wide in bad shape to Paul's, came back nicer then new ,75.00 each. They looked good an the price was with in range.
Just had a 9in Ford rear end housing done $1200 the chromer was whining.....It was cool.!!!!.........OLDBEET
actually, not much of the cost is due to environmental regulations, it's mostly labor, lots of sanding/buffing! the only custom chrome i've had done yet was a pile of motorsickle parts, lots of nuts and bolts as well as some larger items, was about 200 pieces altogether, i did all the buffing, drove to the chrome shop told them to dip them and nothing else, cost me $300. still quite a bit of labor, they had to string all the nuts and bolts together with wire, mask threads, etc.
I worked at a plating shop for a couple years and some people couldn't believe the prices. But if they knew the prep work involved in fixing some of that shit, they'd think it was too cheap. People always came in wanting to have things "dipped", as if there's a big molten cauldron of chrome being heated over a wood fire that parts could just be dipped in and would come out perfect. If you have a really nice car, new chrome is the way to go. Nothing looks better, especially if it's done right. But for me, working on some of my cheapy stuff, I like to browse eBay, the HAMB classifieds, and junkyards, picking up good driver quality pieces as I go. A decent car's worth of chrome and stainless can be pieced together this way for way less than the cost of replating. If anyone's in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area and needs a good chromer, call Terry at Custom Plating Specialists at (920)756-3284 He does really good work and is always happy to talk to people and show them examples of his work. He's really good with pitted pot metal. Having worked there in the past, I know how much effort goes into all those pieces. The name Squablow came from an incident when I worked there.
I tell all my customers, More expensive than new over the counter products. Check out ebay and swap meets. When they are all exhausted, come to me or another chrome shop.
There are some pretty good chrome shops around us-Librandi's is one-but I've never had any work done there. They always have a big display at the shows detailing what's involved in taking your crap out to show quality. For the amount of work, multiple dips and finishes,environmental regulation paperwork and hazardous material exposure-it's bound to be an expensive process and a good shop is likely to be well worth what they charge. I'd still get a written estimate and check their guarantee.
Im about to get some bumpers chromed and was wondering has anyone used the powdercoating chrome? How does it look compared to real chrome?
i am having 2 SMALL rocker boxes chromed for my triumph and i get a almost half off deal and im paying 65. you know what they say about doctors and mechanics? if you get a good one, keep him, even if you have to give me a bj?? i say the same for chromers.
what id SERIOUSLY like to know (not busting balls but i am reaslly curious) is what is justifying the costs of certain things, its not like its a rare part that cost money its a service. without offending anyone on the board, are chromers getting like plumblers/hvac guys? and think that just cuz they "got" ya and they are few and far between they can charge high prices? i know EPA etc. etc. is a big pain in the ass but istill...
They are not few and far between. LOTS here in the Detroit Metro area BUT you get what you pay for. Like others have mentioned already there is LOTS of time (man hours for experienced person) in the prep work and I can definanly see the difference in quality in the prep work of the different shops I've used in the past. I have three seperate shops chroming on Big Olds. From quality being very poor because of lack of prep (very evident) to quality being superior and the price that I paid from one extreme to the other corralates with quality. I only want to pay for rechroming a piece once. I learned my lesson the hard way.
I have used a place in Chicago called Calco for almost 16 years now.Always a great job,with no waves,clean threads,3 week turn around and fairly reasonable.http://www.plantfloor.com/il/calcoplatinginc.htm.I just had a bunch of stuff done for a Triumph murdercycle done.Kickstand,brake levers,bunch of nuts and washers,the big nuts on top of the forks (all 3),carb parts...and all of the parts were pitted pretty bad.My cost was $205.00 for the lot.Just the fork nuts alone are over $100.00 new,so I thought I got a great deal.
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