Letter 23039

Chrome Plating Parts from my 1952 MG TD automobile.  

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I want to know if anyone has had their automobile parts chrome plated and are VERY happy with the quality, price and service they received. Would they recommend who I can send a package of parts from my 1952 MG TD to be plated. It is not intended that the car be a show piece. I want to drive it to club meetings etc. Just to be beautiful.

Rafael de Echeandia, P.E.
N.A. Private Citizen - New Bern , North Carolina, USA

Hello Rafael.

Actually we can't print answers to exactly your question for a number of reasons including the fact that it will attract shills with fictitious identities masquerading as disinterested parties, praising one place and pretending they are dissatisfied customers of other places (it happened constantly until we changed our policy on this). Also, this site is paid for by advertisers, who should not be asked to pay the cost of maintaining testimonials to their competitors even if those testimonials are not phony.

But I can answer your question by saying that replating of old parts involves skilled polishing, buffing, copper plating, rebuffing, semi-bright plus bright nickel plating, and chrome plating, etc.--and a shop which does not specialize will often produce poor parts because they will not have the necessary process tanks and skills and they will skip steps. Nickel-chrome plating has advanced tremendously since 1952 and a good plating job can easily survive a couple of decades of road use.

As for the price, it is the nature of the job that it is almost impossible to be happy. It takes more manual labor to replate one old auto part than to plate 10 new ones in production. So replating an old bumper can easily cost more than replacing it with a new one, and it's human nature to find that very difficult to accept.

Search our jobshop directory and try to find a few places that specialize.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

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