Letter 34432

I want to learn the Art of Chrome Plating

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Any suggestions where I can find someone willing to teach me, or preferably classes I can take??

Any help is appreciated!

Sarah Stricker
New Entrepreneur - LaCrosse, WI

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I am a current small business owner and am interested in starting a chrome wheel dipping business and other items as well . They are all related to the car business as this is my profession. If you have any information on what is needed or what it takes to get it going from scratch, please let me know. Thanks marty

Marty Chandler
Automobile retail sales - North Charleston, South Carolina

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Hello Sarah; hi, Marty.

Similar questions have been asked and addressed dozens of times here, so you may wish to search the site for those earlier discussions to see the perspectives of the many different people who have responded. You may also wish to see our Introduction to Chrome Plating to quickly understand what is involved. But, to not leave this particular thread unanswered . . .

In general, chrome plating is an industrial science rather than an art. Just as you can theoretically make wheels and bumpers yourself with an anvil and bellows arrangement, you can electroplate them yourself. But just as, in reality, wheels and bumpers are made on hydraulic presses and other large industrial equipment in a factory, they are electroplated in million dollar (and up) plating lines in factories. People spend their careers learning a piece of this science, so when someone asks how to do it or what is involved, it unfortunately can't be answered in a few paragraphs.

Plus, electroplating was the nation's first categorically regulated industry -- which means that there are a mountain of regulatory issues (wastewater discharge permits, hazardous waste accumulation and disposal permits, air pollution permits, MACT testing standards for chrome emissions, right-to-know reporting requirements, mandatory medical monitoring of chromium accumulation in blood) before you can get started.

The best way to learn chrome plating is to work in a plating shop for a year if at all possible. Lacking that, you can attend a plating training course put on by Kushner Electroplating School, join the American Electroplaters and Surface Finishing Society (www.nasf.org) and attend local meetings and national conferences, build a library of plating books, subscribe to industry journals which will include 'plant writeups', and visit a few plating shops to get a general feel for it. Once you buy and use a plating chemical, you are legally responsible for it forever, no matter how much you pay the disposal company, so start with the learning, not the buying :-) Good luck!

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

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Where and how? chrome and nickel plating. I want to install a small equipments for chroming and nickel platings, for some parts of cars, bikes and other small things. how and where do I get the entire equipments. I have not a single idea of it and I want to know and have one for business purpose.

Jimo
jobshop employee - Dimapur, Nagaland, India

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I am 21 yrs. old and don't know a whole lot about chroming and I am wanting to start my own chroming shop because there is not one around my home town and you have to drive at least 2 hours to get to one. I think it would be a very successful business due to all the people in my area interested in getting things plated. I'm not sure about what all the process includes or how to get started or even buy supplies or what all I would need to do it. I am looking for any information that would help me getting started on making my dream come true. thanks

Ryan Robirtson
- McHenry, MS, USA

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Suppose I wanted to start a chrome plating business from scratch. I am 20 years old and want to do it all right. Where do I start and how long does it take?

River
- St. Charles, MO

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I want to know how to turn metals into chrome, things need to be used, equipment and procedure. I am a newly graduate and I want to put my own business here in the Philippines.
Thank you for your kindness.

Michael Arjona
- Lucena City, Phil.

Please see our "Introduction to Chrome Plating"

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Sir: I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN CHROME PLATING.AND THE TOOLS NEEDED.ONE DAY, I WOULD LIKE TO START A BUS. I AM 57 AND WILL RETIRE SOON. CAN YOU HELP.

Billy E. Reagor
- Vidor, Texas, USA

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Billy, please try to phrase your question in terms of what has already been said because I don't know what specific help you want that wasn't covered by the earlier response.

But I will add: "Please don't do that to yourself, Billy". If young people, armed with a fully realistic understanding of what is involved, want to start chrome plating businesses as their career (hopefully after having worked in a chrome plating shop for a year or so), then more power to them! The country needs entrepreneurial spirit and I wish them the best.

But for you to envision chrome plating as a pleasant leisure-time mix of business and hobby would be a terrible delusion that could make your retirement a misery. Many people your age continue to drag themselves to work at their plating shop every morning only because they cannot figure out how to legally close it without losing their life savings and their home because the cost of cleanup is so extraordinary.

Ted Mooney
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

January 22, 2009

Sir,
Does anyone help me on how to put up chrome plating business in our place? I am an ex-abroad and i want to learn and invest the chrome plating. thanks a lot.

Francis Alan Palencia
computer engineer - Batangas, Phils.