How much to chrome plate?

It's quite usual for it to cost more to have something plated than the new cost of one factory made.

Assuming the ones you have are new, and brass, the lacquer will have to be removed and the metal polished - all very labour intensive. If they are already chrome plated which needs re-doing - or old brass - this just adds to the work.

One handle. £50

Five handles £50

Fifty handles £50

Fifty thousand handles, £50/hundred

It's also hard work to have things re-chromed - the work is simpler and generally better to have them done on new materials.

Talk to a motorbike restoration shop. They'll know who is a decent plater and who isn't, and who's friendliest to small orders.

If nickel plate will do you, then Caswell sell a pretty good and very simple electroless nickel kit for about £50

If nickel plate is the stuff that is not shiny, then yes, that is actually what I want.

I was also thining about spraying them with silver smoothrite, and then giving them a final coating of a clear laquer.

Any ideas what this may look like ????????

Nickel is more yellow than chrome and less durable. It is usually used as an undercoat to chrome and, on the best work, is itself undercoated with copper. If you don't want it shiny, chrome is available as a matt finish.

For a one-off including preparation, the quotes you have seem quite reasonable.

Colin Bignell

I actually think its more durable.

And a nicer color.

Used a lot on musical instruments is nickel plating.

Yer banjo would most likely be nickel plated, for example...

Chromium is both harder and more chemical resistant than nickel. Its main failing is that it is brittle, which means it will flake if used on a base that can flex. That, however, is a failure of the design, rather than of the plating.

Colin Bignell

If this is the sam place I had some motorbike parts plated they did a crap job, it didn`t last long and peeled off in parts.

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:00:38 +0100, nightjar wrote (in message ):

Years ago I think I read somewhere that chrome is porous and so if used alone on steel/iron it will rust eventually. Nickel plating IIRC, is not porous and so can be used to protect steel/iron more successfully. The best thing IIRC for parts of cars/motorcycles being restored was to nickel plate and then chrome plate on top of that.

Anyway I could have remembered this completely wrongly so someone with more knowledge than me would be able to clarify the thing :)

Personally I've never had anything chrome plated but if I did want to chrome plate something I think I'd enquire with classic car/motorcycle restoration people because they do it a lot. There is very likely a newsgroup for classic vehicle restoration or something. Might be worth a try.

Decorative chrome plating on steel traditionally involves: strip any existing finish polish copper plate nickel plate polish chromium plate with various acid dips and cleaning along the way.

The copper sticks well to the steel and forms an even base coat, the nickel polishes well and the chromium gives a hard shine. This is often referred to as "triple plating". Apparently advances in technique and materials mean that nickel can now be made to adhere well to steel, thus doing away with the copper layer. With normal "show chrome" plating the chromium layer is very thin and most of the shine is provided by the nickel - "hard chrome" is just a thicker chromium layer to provide wear resistance.

Copper / nickel / chrome is the traditional system. Copper to adhere well and to give a good base for the nickel, nickel to provide a flexible white base and chrome to protect the nickel from discolouration. You can get nickel plating solutions that adhere without the copper coat, but IME if you want a really durable finish, you still have to have the copper undercoat, even on brass.

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It is not too difficult to find platers who do chromium plating, although the toxicity of the chemicals used, and the consequent problems of disposal, means that the number is reducing.

Colin Bignell