Chrome powder coat versus plating: opinions?

I've got some old bike parts I want to chrome, and I'm trying to decide whether to go with powder coating or plating. Any opinions regarding cost, durability, finish quality?

 

Thanks Ryan - what about surface prep for coating (HPC or Eastwood powder coat) versus plating?

BTW - for a price comparison, Eastwood quotes $13/8oz, $25/lb for their chrome powder coat. Also, I found this site that has chrome spray paint...

http://www.kustomrides.com/chromepaint.htm

looks good, but kinda pricey ($17 per ounce, $1170/gallon) and I can't imagine the durability is all that great...

 

sorry to be dense - but who/what is HPC and is there some contact info? .....please help the ignorant

 

The chrome spary paint doesn't look very good at all. The Eastwood and HPC stuff look pretty good. Like Ryan said very polished aluminum looking. If you're planning on doing it yourself DO NOT do it in the oven in which you cook food. Just FYI...

 

mike, if you noticed the exhaust on my 32 during the garage crawl in austin they are hpc coated and were only two weeks old at the round up. the first set on my 32 lasted 12 years with no problems at all. but they had gotten pretty dull over the years.

 

Mike, I have had lots of parts powdered coated with the chrome/silver color and have been very satisfied with it. I had an intake manifold and three sets of headers done lately,but I didn't use HPC, I did a internet search and found a company locally that did it. They all use the same process and materials. Basically, they media blast the part and coat it and bake it,but I had a set of chrome fenderwell exit headers done and they stripped them then coated them.

 

how chrome does the chrome powder coat look?i'm polishing the cases,cylinders,and heads on my fxr,and was gonna gloss black powder the heads and cylinders,and just leave the fin edges polished,i'd consider the chrome powder if it actually looked chrome.anyone ever seen it ?

 

It doesn't look like chrome.It's more like polished aluminum.

 

when i worked at a commercial tire place, we powder coated steel wheels to use on the inside of duals with polished aluminum wheels on the outside. they looked almost the same as the polished aluminum, but when held next to actual chrome, there is no comparison.

 

There is a new way to Chrome Aluminum Wheels! I found out about it and would like to know if any of you have tried it?
The process involves a thin coat of Chrome covered by a Clear Powder Coat top coat.
Anyone here tried it?
Thanks.

 

Most of the powder coating suppliers offer the base chrome powder and the clear over chrome. Supposedly the clear over chrome is better. I have used the single coat and it is OK. I have tried to double coat parts of an intake, which is difficult to get the second coat on. My point, the clear may be hard to coat over the base chrome. I really like the option of coating stuff myself. Note, every blem shows, I use gl*** beading if possible, practice setting the piece in the oven. You need to make sure you can set or hang the part without touching ANYTHING. I use acetone to wipe the parts down. Laquer thinner may do. Heating the part prior to coating will help by de g***ing the part. The whole part needs to be clean. Paint and other junk will smoke and bubble. I have the Eastwood dual voltage gun and no problems yet.

 

HPC's coating can be polished with Mother's Aluminum Polish or the like to bring back the shine. I don't know if it shortens the life of the coating any, though.

 

Only Chrome looks like Chrome. Nothing else is close. HPC is close to polished aluminum. Chrome powdercoating is not close at all.

 

OK,to clarify my question you should go to this web site- www.calchrome.com Look for #2 on the left Plating/Painting services click on that and open CalChromeClear on the right.
The process I'm talking about uses Real Chrome coating on the bare wheel surface protected by a Clear Powder coat. I think it's the same process used on Edelbroc's Intake manifolds.
Just wondered if anyone has had any experience with it?
Looks like it will be used a Lot more in the future.

 

For sure X2

 

For finish you will want chrome. There isn't anything that can bring the shine like chrome can. However if you are cutting cost the Chrome Powder coat would be recommended.
Durability would depend on who did the finish on either Chrome or Powder coating. Both are very durable when done correctly.
The main question is what is your goal in getting the parts redone? Chrome will in my opinion look better but will cost you some extra $$.
What bike parts are you looking at getting done?
Jimmy

 

I paid huge sums of money to a powdercoater for "chrome and clear" on a motorcycle frame. 4 words: Don't waste your money. If you want something that looks like chrome pay for chrome. I have an exhaust system on one of my race bikes with JET-HOT coating. It looks good, but it's actually an aluminized plasma spray meant for exhaust systems -not quite as shiny as chrome, and I don't think they coat anything but pipes.

 

You had to go to a thread from ****ing 2004 for this? The topic pops up once a week!

 

Sorry Tman,Im new to this and was looking for a way to start a new topic but couldn't figure out how to do it so I found this one.
With 19 thousand posts you are a lot ****ing Smarter than I am.

 

No, its alright and sometimes preferable to add to old threads. But your post sounded like you thought you were the only person in the world that knew of these new technologies!?

 

I was not aware of it untill I called Halibrand and ask if they sold their wheels already Chrome Plated. Their tech guy sugested I look into this alternative because he had seen the results and was very impressed with it. He sugested we would be seeing a lot more of this process being done in the future so I was looking for people who had Already tried it to see how it was holding up in everyday use.

 

Sounds like the coating Edelbrock and ET/TeamIII are using

 

Here is the link

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471155&highlight=coating&showall=1

Perma Star is the one mentioned.

 

Hey at least he searched right?

 

He done allright

 

Is powder coating traditional?

 

That link to Perma Star helps. www.samotorsportsinc.com Thats the company/process that the rep. at Halibrand said looked good! If you read the details about the process you can see why it would seem to be a good idea on Aluminum wheels?
has anyone here had experience with them/it?

 

Jimmy, I was about to agree with you completely, until I saw you were my brother .

Darrel, you are ahead of a lot of new guys on this forum already, so don't sweat it.