Re-plating pitted chrome Hello fordbarn folks,
I have a pitted chrome tailight housing, anyone ever " metal finish" the pitted areas and have the whole thing replated ? I know it ( surface ) needs to be smooth ( baby butt smooth, no dimples) Then they ( chrome plater ) copper plate then chrome it ?? Any experiences or cautions gladly accepted, opinions too! Thanks. |
Re: Re-plating pitted chrome Gary, If the pits aren't too deep and you can remove them with increasingly finer sand paper, starting with 120 and finishing with 600 you should be OK. As a final step, if you have access to a buffing wheel, polish the heck out of it with jeweler's rouge. Platers remove the old chrome in a bath and start over with the copper. Because of the cost of plating these days they eliminate some of the work they must do. In an ideal world they would buff the copper out, replate, buff out again and continue doing so until the copper fills all of the pits. Then they would do the chrome plating. Most shops don't mess with that. They content themselves with a single coat of copper. It would behoove you to have your piece mirror-like before you send it off. Good Luck, Dennis/Arkansas
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Re: Re-plating pitted chrome Excellent advice Dennis, chrome shops are not what they use to be, do as much smoothing, removing pits ect. then choose a good chrome shop.
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Re: Re-plating pitted chrome great advice, what if pits are into the metal ?
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Re: Re-plating pitted chrome Gary, I have in the past soldered pits with 60/40 (tin to lead ratio) for some nickel plating I had done with OK results. Brazing the pits would be a possibilty if you can keep from burning through. The best would probably be wire welding them over, then go through the polishing process. What year model tail light housing is it? They repop some of the housings that are available in chrome. That would be less labor intensive and probably a cheaper alternative. Dennis/Arkansas
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Hey Dennis thanks for all the help.
They are 40's or maybe 50's mopar sideways on my 34 sedan delivery, could not afford the Chrysler airflow ones, but hell its my car, and I like em. Flat motor, all else is Henry, the left one ( drivers ) is pitted a bunch been looking on E---Y , but no luck ( they might even be early fifties ?? Anyone have one ...? Thanks again Gary |
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Not a place to send the stuff you want good enough for a 'driver'. Rather, the place to send stuff you want done for a true concourse restoration. |
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Re: Re-plating pitted chrome Usually it's pot metal that is pitted. I have used Muggy weld to repair pits (after having the chrome chemically stripped)
See here-- http://www.muggyweld.com/potmetal.html |
Re: Re-plating pitted chrome I use the Muggy weld solder too. The 51 Mercurys have a lot of zinc die cast stuff and it will fill most pitting and leave a surface that can still be plated.
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Re: Re-plating pitted chrome I'm with 19Fordy. Take the items to the chrome shop and get them to strip off the old chrome, clean them up and copper plate them. Take them home, fill up all the pits with 50/50 soldier, smooth the soldier off and take them back to the plater who will replate them with copper and then chrome them. I have done this quite a few times and they have always turned out really good.
David |
Re: Re-plating pitted chrome Contact your potential chromer before you do anything, some dont mind you working on it, others however will either redo your work (and charger you for the extra labor) or flat out refuse to touch it if you attempted a repair.
Remember, they are the ones that are gonna have to stand behind it, and if your part of the repair causes problems, they arent gonna be happy. |
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