I was told by a chrome plater that he cannot get chrome in the recessed rectangular slots on the lower half of my instrument panel. See the pictures of my '51 Merc instrument panel. These recessed rectangular slots have inside corners with a tight radius. I don't quite understand why he cannot get chrome in those areas, and I didn't want to take up more of his time. I'm familiar with the chrome plating process. Is that typically a hard to chrome area? Why can't it be chromed? Or should I find another chrome plater?
That area should plate fine, I would think he is talking about polishing that area ? The nickel throws into corners ok but the chrome layer doesnt like throwing into corners or holes unless its specifically setup to do so.
^^^^^ I am thinking that is what he is saying. Should be no problem o get the chome in the the part is dipped, but it is a bear if a place to polish which is why it was typically panted on a new car back then. I have seen item plated in that area and polished, but it is not something that the plater is going to want to invest time in, unless he is your friend if you want it polished you are going to have to get your dremel out and polish it yourself. That will involve taking the peice to the plater having him blow the chrom off of it picking it up and polisheg it at home. If it is pited you may want to fill the pits with silver solder and then once it is copper plated bring it home and polish it again.
Thats what he means. When I had my garnish mouldings chromed years ago the plater told me that he would have to cut out the gussets that tie the corners together because they couldn't polish in there unless they were removed. The polisher forgot to do that and they plated them anyway. The corners came out with plating on them but its somewhat duller in there.
Plating relies on the the electro throwing power of the anodes to the cathodes to get an even plate of consistent thickness. The closer or more accessible the surface of the piece to be plated (the substrate) is to the anodes the better the plating coverage is. Recessed areas on the piece are called low density areas and it is difficult to throw' the current into these areas. The high areas around the recessed area will naturally attract the throw and rob the recessed area of plating coverage. An area on a piece that has little to no plating coverage is sometimes called skip plate. Sometimes a plater will use auxiliary anodes to get the anode throwing power closer to a specific low density area to try to get better coverage. On the flip side, the areas closest to the anodes are called high density areas and they will sometimes get too much throw and the surface will tree up (a chunky looking build up) or burn (burns off the plating and leaves the bare metal of the substratel). The racking of parts for plating is an art and can make or break the final outcome. A good racker will use auxiliary anodes for low density areas and robbers for high density areas to achieve an even and consistent plate. As Langy said, "the chrome layer doesnt like throwing into corners or holes unless its specifically setup to do so". This is where the auxiliary anodes come into play. With the right plater and some inventive racking, this part should be able to get a pretty even plate.
After spending more time than I care to remember loading and unloading plating racks at General Motors 36cab is spot on in his explanation. It takes a lot of time and experience to properly rack a part to be plated and most small time operations (read those that do short run/single item plating) won't take the time to do it properly because they know the time involved will put the cost beyond what the average customer is willing to pay. This is why a very few platers have such good reputations as they won't do a so_so job and the customers they cater to are willing to "step up" and pay for the good results. Frank
It does not matter how well he polishes the recessed areas. If you can't get the throw into them they will get little to no chrome and they will look like ****. I was the lead plater in a large chrome shop for ten years. I learned lots of tricks to get the chrome to go where it did not want to go.
36cab nailed it, also it helps to turn the power down and plate slower but of course, this too takes more time. There is a reason the best custom chrome costs $$$$$ more than cheap chrome.
We would drain and clean the rinse tanks every Friday. Before we drained them, we would start two full bars of car parts down the line and let them simmer in the nickle baths at low voltage for hours while we cleaned. Nothing beats low voltage and long time in the nickle for beautiful plating! This was a manufacturing facility that plated all of the equipment that they built. The tanks were huge; 4' wide X 6' deep by 12' long. I remember doing a few small to medium sized complete car frames. Employees could plate their own stuff for free as long as they did their own polishing on their own time. I had polishers set up a my home garage and I could plate my stuff cheaper than I could paint it. Man do I ever I miss that place!
Thank you for all of the replies. I actually learned a lot about the plating process even though I was already familiar with it.
Great comments here, have you talked to Finishing Touch on the north side of Chicago. If it can be done right, they get my vote. Bring your check book.
I've seen work done by Finishing Touch and it is beautiful as well as expensive. I haven't had the time to make it over there to see what they have to say about my bumpers, instrument panel, etc.
I had my insert rechromed this past summer. The chrome plater also warned me that there would be imperfections in the slots and corners and suggested that I paint these areas after chroming. Even though I had expectations that there would be imperfections, when I picked it up, I asked if they could redo the chroming because it was not as good as I was hoping. They gladly re-worked the part, but the imperfections were only slightly improved. I felt like I originally got a good price compared to other places so I had to balance perfection versus cost. Down the road I may paint these recessed areas, but for now I'll keep it the way it is and be happy that it looks way better than the way it was when I purchased the car.
The finish is only as good as the polishing, any pits can be fixed but its an expensive process as it very labour intensive. ... . Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
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