Letter 27064

Businessman wants to start a chroming business [Virginia] 

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I restore cars in my spare time and want to start a chroming business as a full time job I have the money but not the supplies or the equipment even a building isn't a problem! can you help?

Joseph A [name deleted for privacy due to age of posting]
want to get started - Rockymount, Virginia,

Almost every time any of us here attempt to answer such a question, we are immediately labeled as secretive and trying to maintain the status quo so our cronies can continue to wallow in their filthy riches, Mr. Arnold :-)

But here's the deal anyway--Anything can be done; you can certainly go into the chrome plating business! But the issue is that getting into chrome plating is costly, ties you up in incredible environmental red tape from a dozen angles (electroplating was EPA's very first categorically regulated industry), and takes at least a couple of years of learning. I've been in the plating industry over 35 years and am a neophyte in a lot of areas.

If someone wanted to get into the restaurant business, they'd start with a leg up, having been to hundreds of restaurants in their life, understanding what comprises a good host or hostess, a good cook, a good waiter, good value, and nice atmosphere. They'd know that people eat 3x a day and spend more time and money on dinner than on lunch, and ten thousand other little things. They'd already know a lot of what they need to know from a lifetime of exposure to restaurants. If they wanted to open an auto repair shop, well, they've been to dozens or hundreds and they understand the basic issues there as well. 

But if you open a chrome plating shop, and have never even been in one, you start with zero knowledge of absolutely everything. How would you price your product, what medical surveillance would you request for your employees, what emergency procedures would you set up to handle a fire, where would you send your polisher for training, what would you do if a chromic acid tank sprung a leak? How would you clean the floor? What would you adjust if the parts are pitted, or rusting, or whitewashed, or burnt at the corners, or yellowish in the recesses, or if the plating peels off? What records would you keep of your exhaust ventilation system?

Questions like this can be fired off 10 a minute for the next 12 hours, and each takes hours to answer. So my advice to aspiring chrome shop owners remains to do all or at least several of the following: get a job in a plating shop for a year if at all possible; under some auspice or other, get in to visit a half dozen or dozen shops; join the American Electroplaters & Surface Finishers Society, and attend the meetings and conferences, and read the journal each month; take a week-long plating course through AESF or Kushner Electroplating School; buy or borrow several plating books and read them cover to cover; subscribe to the industry magazines.

If you can summarize your knowledge of chrome plating in a few paragraphs I can offer a more targeted answer to the next step. Meanwhile you could start with our Intro to Chrome Plating. Good luck; we hope you join us!

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

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