Hey guys, did a search on Chrome platers in the Chicago area and found a few old posts. I'm wanting to get a bumper plated and some small odds and ends and was curious if you guys could recommend someone in the Chicago, Indianapolis or Southwest Michigan areas. The guy I used for a few years went out of business. Prices you paid for parts plated and turn around time would be helpful, I know all chrome prices vary by part just curious what people are paying these days.
If your more worried about price than perfection Burgess plating in Indy is very reasonable. Their work is very good but not show car quality. I wouldn't hesitate to take anything to them. Their are a few other places in town here that cost more but unless your worried about perfection Burgess is the best value in my opinion.
a few months ago I dropped off a 57 chevy front bumper there, Leo gave me a price and I said ok, he then called me a week later and said it was going to cost another $100. I picked it up. **** Burgess. Take it to Progressive Plating 317-926-6213 Indy
I wouldn't use anyone but Advanced Plating. Learned my lesson a long time ago, pay once to get the job done and done right. www.advancedplating.com 1425 Cowan Ct Nashville, TN 37207-5628 (615) 227-6900
after Leo decided he needed another hundred, it was $45.00 cheaper to go with progressive. there's a guy on M*** Ave who plates too, beats everybody on price, but it's driver quality. Advance Plating is really the way to go for a great show job
My step dad had all his plating on his 32 done by the guy on M*** Ave, but I couldn't remember the name of the shop or exact address so I didn't mention him, all the work I had done by Leo was years ago and for race cars so it didnt have to be perfect
We were just at the Valpo Corvette and Chevy show. Could have made it easier on you. Oh well. PM me if you want more info. We are an hour east of Indy
Well, I took my 63 Cadillac parts to Progressive Plating in Indy, Chrome plating has gone up since I had my 64 Galaxie parts done. I saw some of their work that had recently been finished and it looked nice so we'll see how my parts turn out. Progressive told me 5-6 weeks for turnaround time. I'll update the thread when the stuff is picked up. Pat
All right here's the deal with Progressive Plating, Sorry for the delay in updating the thread. 8 months after a dropped the parts off I get them back, EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE SH*T!!!!!!!!! I had to call to ask about the parts many times, never received any call backs. I don't know what they did to my parts, any pits and damage is still there, hell the original chrome looked better than what they did. The original plating is still under what they did on some pieces. It's definatly not copper, nickle, chrome....... Pits were not fixed, damage was not fixed, 90% of the parts were not stripped. The parts that were stripped down to the base metal are so bad that they even ground off the reveal or design on parts. The smaller pieces don't even shine like the original 1963 plating did I'm so disappointed it makes me sick to even think about it, this stuff isn't even driver quality. Progressive thought it looked great, guys in the shop were impressed with their work. I told them I was disappointed, they didn't see any issues with their work, I'm done fighting with them. I'm out $1900 but at least I have my parts back to get replated somewhere else. I had everything done by them except the rear bumper, I bought that plated from a guy on Ebay and it looks great. Please don't use Progressive Plating. I'm all about supporting local shops but this is just disgusting. I'm not rich, I work a bunch of overtime and save what I can to enjoy this hobby, is it too much to ask for quality work
Roy is correct re Burgess. Last week I had Leo do some parts for a dragster that I had done the basic prep on. The finished job is not show quality but for the price it is what I expected. He did it in less than a week too and I am happy with what I got for what I paid. Not planning on trying to win the Ridler award with this car, just wanted reasonable plating in a reasonable time frame. Roo
Anyone who knows me knows I have a fetish with chrome. Burgess can do quality work but sometimes it takes a couple of times to get it right. Trust me when I tell you that you will never get good, cheap and fast at a chrome shop. When I wanted the 324 Oldsmobile tripower intake and carbs on El Tiki done I wanted a nice job, but I was also concerned about how well the carbs would work @ they were plated. Enter Advanced Plating. Not cheap, but I can honestly say the work they do is beyond comparison to any other shop I have done business with. Not only does the setup look like a huge piece of expesive jewelry, they function 100% as good as they did before.
progressive is a larger shop that focuses on production work. They don't care about custom stuff, and don't need to. Leo of Burgess Plating is quite the character, but his qualty is limited, especially for pot metal because he doesn't use acid copper and relies on his guys to do everything. He is on the cheaper side and has been around a long time. He actually helped my dad get started 6 years ago, so gotta give him props for that. Try us out, you'll like it. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=272171&highlight=51+kaiser+dragon&page=30
I used J&P in Portland, Indiana...pretty good. Advance is better, but more $$$. Depends on what you want.
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