Chrome bumper deal (triple plate), The Bumper Shop in LA (gauging interest) Options

[narino]

So last February (2007) I saw The Bumper Shop had a deal to chrome each bumper for $175. Well unfortunately that deal was through Danny who I guess has gone his own way and left this shop.

The guys at the bumper shop are still interested in our group and have offered another deal of $275 per bumper. I guess their regular prices are $350 per bumper now.

What do you guys think? This a good deal, or do others have a better option out there I have missed?

We need minimum 5 bumpers to do it. Anyone interested in getting theirs rechromed with me?




Gintedit - June 24, 2009:

OK folks, this particular "group buy" completed last year. Chris (?) aka banger has stepped up to organize a new buy this year. He's started a new thread for same located here:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=96986

Given that, we're going to close this thread and reference the new one. If you're interested in the deal, check out and post in the new thread.

This post has been edited by Gint: Jun 24 2009, 08:25 PM

[TravisNeff]

For your reading pleasure. Now if they are to skip the copper plating, are they going to do a nickel dip twice?

Decorative Chrome Plating

Decorative chrome plating is sometimes called nickel-chrome plating because it always involves electroplating nickel onto the object before plating the chrome (it sometimes also involves electroplating copper onto the object before the nickel, too). The nickel plating provides the smoothness, much of the corrosion resistance, and most of the reflectivity. The chrome plating is exceptionally thin, measured in millionths of an inch rather than in thousandths.

When you look at a decorative chromium plated surface, such as a chrome plated wheel or truck bumper, most of what you are seeing is actually the effects of the nickel plating. The chrome adds a bluish cast (compared to the somewhat yellowish cast of nickel), protects the nickel against tarnish, minimizes scratching, and symbiotically contributes to corrosion resistance. But the point is, without the brilliant leveled nickel undercoating, you would not have a reflective, decorative surface.

By the way, there is no such thing as "decrotif chrome plating". That is just a misspelling of 'decorative'.



Buzzwords: "Show chrome", "Triple Chrome Plating", "Double Nickel-Chrome"

"Show chrome" probably means chrome that is good enough to be on a winning entry in a car show. Although most OEMs rely on the "self-levelling" property of nickel plating to give sufficient reflectivity to roughly polished steel, chrome-lovers believe that the key to "show chrome" is to copper plate the item first and then buff the copper to a full lustre before starting the nickel plating.

Whether you start with bare steel or buffed copper, at least two layers of plating follow -- a layer of nickel and a layer of chrome. But high quality plating requires a minimum of two layers of nickel.

Salespeople are always looking for advantage, and they will use any good-sounding terms they can get away with! There are no laws that define what triple chrome plating actually means, so salespeople will be prone to call their service "triple chrome plating" if there are a total of 3 layers of any kind of plating, or "quadruple chrome plating" if there are 4. So those terms mean little.

The most important issue for durable chrome plating for outdoor exposure such as on a vehicle is that it MUST have at least two layers of nickel plating before the chrome: namely semi-bright nickel followed by bright nickel. The reason for this involves galvanic corrosion issues. The bright nickel is anodic to the semi-bright nickel, and sacrificially protects it, spreading the corrosion forces laterally instead of allowing them to penetrate through to the steel. OEMs demand very close control of this factor, and there is a test (the Chrysler developed STEP test) which large shops run daily to insure the right potentials. Careful control of this issue is probably the principal reason that today's chromium plating greatly outlasts the chrome plating of earlier times.

Experts argue whether copper plating provides any additional corrosion resistance at all, but with or without copper plating, chrome on top of a single layer of nickel will not hold up to the severe exposure of a vehicle! Industry professionals call the two layers of nickel "duplex nickel plating", and that would be a much better term to use than "triple chrome" and such.

Chrome plating is hardly a matter of dipping an article into a tank, it is a long involved process that often starts with tedious polishing and buffing, then cleaning and acid dipping, zincating (if the part is aluminum), and copper plating. For top reflectivity "Show Chrome", this will be followed by buffing of the copper for perfect smoothness, cleaning and acid dipping again, and plating more copper, then two or three different types of nickel plating, all before the chrome plating is done. Rinsing is required between every step.



Restoration Work

When an item needs "rechroming", understand what is really involved: stripping the chrome, stripping the nickel (and the copper if applicable), then polishing out all of the scratches and blemishes (they can't be plated over and any scratches will show after plating), then plating with copper and "mush buffing" to squash copper into any tiny pits, then starting the whole process described above.

Unfortunately, simply replating an old piece may cost several times what a replacement would cost. It's the old story of labor cost. The new item requires far less prep work, and an operator or machine can handle dozens of identical parts at the same time whereas a mix of old parts cannot be processed simultaneously, but must be processed one item at a time. If a plater has to spend a whole day on your parts, don't expect it to cost less than what a plumber or mechanic would charge you for a day of their time.



Peeling chrome?

If your chrome plating is peeling, this is virtually always a manufacturing defect due to insufficient adhesion of the plating to the substrate. Although exposure conditions can certainly harm chrome, they don't make it peel. It can be very difficult for the plating shop to get good adhesion on some things (specifically on aluminum wheels) because they are not pure aluminum, but if they can't do it they shouldn't sell it. If your parts have peeling, you should complain and you should not be deterred by nonsense about chemicals in your garage, how frequently you wash the wheels, etc. We'll say it again, peeling chrome is virtually always a manufacturing defect.