have a set of mercury stamped y block covers i'd like to have chromed for my 272 ! while i have no complaints w the local chrome shop in des moines iowa 60 miles away who i have had do several parts for me i'm afraid i may go into shock of what they would tell me they wanted ! i realize you get what you pay for but i would like to think theres somewhere out there i could ship these to and have them reasonably done ? when i say reasonable i'm thinking 100-150 $ theyre super straight ! i saw a gorgeous set of fe ford t bird script covers at the local chromer this summer while picking up stuff and i swear she said the customer paid $500 to have em done ouch ! am i just out of touch with what it should cost for these ? thanks in advance for any leads
Doing a quality plating job is labor intensive and the EPA has made the platers put in so much expensive reclaiming equipment that their overhead is very costly. About 20 years ago I had Advance Plating do a steering arm on a 56 Ford pickup box and they charged me $ 100. I thought that was ridiculous, so I used another plater who did my rollbar, draglink, and lots of engine pieces for only $ 200. Guess what, after 20+ years the arm Advance Plating did looks like the day it was done, and the other stuff turned green or the copper started showing through after only a few years. This time around I paid $ 300 for just the rollbar, but the chrome is deep and it is holding up great. So sometimes it is a better value to pay for a quality job up front and not have to redo it in a little while. I would highly recommend Advance Plating, and also hear good things about Paul's Plating. The last company I used was Gulf Plating in Lauderdale, and recommend them as well. Don
What's expensive is the labor prepping those valve covers for plating. If you have access to some polishing equipment, get them as close to ready for plating as you can and knock off a lot of the labor cost.
I lost my great grandfather to the worst air pollution episode in this nation's history (Donora, PA 1948) where 20 people and 800 animals perished, so I thank the EPA for the ability to breath clean air and drink clean water, every day.
i totally hear you and understand you on this , cheaper isn't always better , like i say the local chrome shop does an excelent job always nice thick chrome , not like the chromed engine intake or alt i bought and a year later its flaking cause i'm sure it was plated in china or somewhere !
You want to chip in for this chrome job then? I can't add much else, with Chrome you can either have it good, or cheap, but not both.
Nice response about chipping in. Your mom teach you to make fun of losing family members? Cl***y move... You want it cheap? Send it to China. They don't give a **** about their health over there.
I believe politics are officially OT on this forum. That being said, I'd rather pay more for my chrome plating than find out years later that the plating guy dumped his chemicals in his back yard or down the sewer. I thank the EPA every day I breathe and drink, and Richard Nixon for starting the EPA.
Ahh. I see why you have the handle you do, as I said nothing about your deceased relatives, I did not query as to whether they may have been cousins or brother and sister or any such thing, but you chose to draw some personal insult out of that short statement. I'll draw my own conclusion about what that means. Given politics are O/T for this forum, I made the error of allowing one to draw their own conclusion about my point, which is that if you like/want agencies like the EPA, that's all well and good, but how about you make up the difference in costs that the rest of us don't feel it should be necessary to pay because these groups go well above and beyond the call of duty in the name of "protecting" us..... So just so it's clear for everyone else, I did not insult this person's relatives, in fact I said nothing about them at all.
The "handle" is because I volunteer to help some folks out that require some special ***istance. How many more times are you gonna put your foot in your mouth today, genius? Give it a rest. I think the thread is off-topic enough now...
I've had work done by ChromeplaterJosh and he did it for a low price and it's nice quality. Plus he's a HAMBer!
Save your money and put it on performance parts.Like another poster said thank the epa for the exhorbant costs.
Chrome is expensive,and it is because of the E.P.A. guidelines and regulations. Our shop went through a E.PA. inspection and every chemical we had was checked out. M.S.D.. sheet reguired on everything. . These idiots even made us take the secretaries hand sanatizer and put it in the Fire cabinet.I have nothing against the E.P.A. but their rules don"t apply to all.Special ED. your comment about being thankful for the clean water. Well 75% of all bottled water sold in the United States comes straight out of the tap. No origin of product is required on label. I confronted the E.P.A. inspector with this after handing him a bottle of water and he had no responce at all except to look shocked.
Use a place the ******** bikers use, they don't handle f-ups very well and are not usually well financed.
x2 on this one! They did some pieces for me this spring. 2 pieces about 1.5 time larger than your valve covers, $500 for the pair. VERY PLEASED with the results. My cores weren't even close to perfect, bent, rusted, pitted, etc.. YOu get what you pay for and it always cost more to do it twice!
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