one of the big parts that pulls my plan for the coupe project together is some sharp looking chromed zoomie styled headers. if it makes any differnce, they would come off the head, out to just before the line were a hood side would be, then bend back and run together untill about 4-6 inches along the cowl. just trying to get an idea. ill try and post a pic of how they would look shortly tia tim \ight here it is. they would be more parrelel and what not, but this would give you enough of an idea i would think
lol, yeah i supose including the question would help lol how much would you assume would be a typical estimate to chrome them??
I have no idea of what prices are like in your area, Tim, but here in over-regulated California you'd be looking at something in the range of $800-$1200 for chrome plating that much pipe. If you've already built them, I suggest you polish them yourself and have them HPC coated. The resulting finish isn't quite as mirror-like as chrome, but it gets surprisingly close, depending on how well the surface is polished beforehand. If you haven't built the zoomies I suggest that you use 304 stainless and polish them. The stuff TIGs beautifully, and you can get mandrel bends, straight tubing, and cones from Burns Stainless -- nice folks to deal with. http://www.burnsstainless.com/ A particularly nice quality of stainless is that it won't blue like chrome will. It will get a faint straw color in time, but it polishes off and the zoomies would continue to look as good as they did when first installed.
I've had quite a bit of chroming done over the last year for my caddy mill going into my model A, and i can tell you right now, you're probably gonna be looking at a minimum of $400, and that's only if each pipe is a seperate piece, not conected to the others like a block-hugger style of header or something...Most of the expese of chroming something comes from the labor involved...they have to smooth and polish first before chroming...it kinda works like painting something...it only looks as good on the outsidde as the work put in underneath...I'm kinda goin' through the same thing, as I'm building zoomies for my Caddy mill that'll be chromed when finnished...i don't know, you could go the stainless route too, but the bluing that the chrome gets from driving is part of the reason I'm chroming them! It all comes down to what ever trips your trigger, and what ever your wallet can withstand....
A friend of mine.....I can't disclose his name for obvious reasons.......Used the stainless steel grab rails found in Handicap bathrooms.....They worked beautifully... Now..of course I'm not suggesting you go out and pilfer some of this cool tubing, hehehe...... but some building demolition contractors will have piles of it at their storage yards and sell it by the pound....
These headers were polished at home and then chromed. Because the chromer didn't do any polishing, it worked out pretty cheap. I sanded the welds on the individual pipes before welding them together and then spent 2 or 3 hours cleaning them up when they were finished. The initial cleanup was with a 3M stripit disc in a drill, then they were hand sanded with a couple of different grades, then finished them off with scotchbrite pads and WD40. They aren't 'show' quality, but they are smooth enough that the chrome has a good shine.
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