Rechroming console metal plate/door/etc. Advice?

[tylerk]

I'm trying to bury myself into some sort of small project while my car is getting finished up. I had cleaned up my back plate and the top plates for my console. I had started out with only getting my shifter chromed and a new knob kit for it, but the tiny little scratches in the chrome finish on the plates I can't deal with. All the money I'm pouring into the car now makes it hard for those little scratches to go unnoticed, I know you guys understand.

Has anyone sent their plates, etc off to be rechromed instead of just buying the repops? With as many pieces as I've had to replace, I don't really want to buy repops as my resto is starting to make me feel like I'm replacing everything. I want some originality left where I can leave it. So my question is- how does one go about that? I've read up on taking the woodgrain off, I know that'll have to be replaced. But the actual plates, have any of you had those rechromed?

Your thoughts would be appreciated! Hoping to have some pictures up soon, bodyman says we'll be ready to prime and paint next week hopefully. 

[Dino]

Haven't done it yet but will be rechroming a few odds and ends including the console plates.  Remove the woodgrain and clean up any goo.  Find a chrome shop and look at their work.  When you find one you feel comfortable with you ask them if they want the piece as is or if you can do some prep work yourself.  Some shops don't want you doing any prep because they feel it may end up being more work for them.  They just throw the plates in a few solutions to remove the old plating, then they polish everything (crucial step) and triple plate it.  Pricey but oh so purdy.   

I have done prep on pieces in the past but that's because I had the tools and like doing so, a good chrome shop will have those plates looking like new in no time.  If you have more pieces that need chrome then try to have as much parts done in one go to bring the cost down a bit.  (this may not be the case with all shops though)

[bull]

What year are we talking here? 69? The problem with rechroming these pieces is that pot metal tends to lose its sharpness during the process. The stripping process uses chemicals strong enough to remove chrome and it rounds off any sharp edges that are supposed to be there. Plus pot metal is very susceptible to pitting, which looks like the chrome flaking off in spots. Do you have pits in the plates? When pot metal rusts it expands and erupts through the chrome and the only way to really fix that is by drilling each of those pits and filling them with something that will accept new chrome. Very time consuming and costly, and it needs to be very precise for something that's right there for everyone to see.

So if you're as picky as it sounds, I don't think you'd be very happy with the price you'd have to pay for something that looks mediocre. Save the originality for the stuff that's not made out of pot metal.

But if all we're talking about is tiny scratches I would (at most) take them to a professional and have them buffed and then put new decals on. Scratches are nothing for something that's more than 40 years old. I wouldn't even bother with it if that's all we're talking about.

[Dino]

I totally forgot it's pot metal.  Ignore what I said, listen to Bull!