Chroming

[xwingband]

I was thinking of this last night...

I figured that if I had to rechrome a graflex I'd think a dark chrome version would be awesome. Anyone with experience in chroming (not necessarily dark chrome), tell me a bit about it?

I know it's not something you can do yourself, but what kind of prices and places would be good for something as small as a hilt? If I did it would there be something I could do to help any prep work?

[Tenric Starkindler]

arent there chrome paints for metal that would work for this?
I have seen a few different shades, including aged brass, in either Home Depot or Lowes.

[xwingband]

Chrome paints are a hard... they are mostly for if the surface is immaculate in the first place. The chrome paints I've seen too are not good for constant use.

If chroming is too much of a hassle would oxidizing the chrome work? Aluminum Black?

[desertscorpion]

These custom chopper dudes have to get their parts chromed somewhere. I think they use a chromium solution. Plate it and then smooth it out.

[meiv4]

Yea chroming is a plating process. electrolysis and whatnot current in thie piece to be chromed attracts the chromium ions or some such thing. best bet for finding prices is grabbing the local yellow pages and your phone.

[GFORCE13]

Hello X-wing check out this place they sell all kind of plating and painting products to do it yourself, I have used there wrinkle finish paint on my Obi-Wan Pommel with great results. http://www.eastwoodco.com/index.jsp

[Firebird21]

Chrome paint, or "n***er chrome" as it's most commonly refered to in these parts (don't blame me! I didn't make it up!) is nothing more than very fine silver metalic paint.

It looks nothing like Chrome, I have no clue how they get away with calling it that!


xwing, PM me with the dimentions. My father works for a plating co. and I will run it by him. A pic of the specific part alone would be a great help too.

[xwingband]

Well, I was thinking of the whole Graflex... so is that specific enough on dimentions, lol?

[Firebird21]

Well I would need to know each part.

They would have to plate each part separetly, so I'd have to tell him, or show him every part you'd want to plate.

And no plastic parts. I'm pretty sure there's only a couple of places that know how to do it (and it's a closely guarded secret) and I don't think his place does it.

Chroming is not cheap. It is likely that this could cost over $400 to do this. Plating is one of thoes things that is drasticly cheaper to do in high volume. Doing just one piece is more expencive.

[xwingband]

Well shoot... $400 :shock: I was thinking $100 wouldn't be too awful if I had to replate it. $400 is a bit out of my range for a saber.

Well, guees I'll have to figure out how to get a black look some other way.

[Tenric Starkindler]

could you 'distress' it with a flame?
then clear seal it to hold the new patina?

I'd try it on a sink tube first though.

[xwingband]

Yeah, I've seen that done, but I was looking for an even look. I doubt the brazed (I believe that what it's called) look would be perfectly even.

[xwingband]

WHOO!!! It seems I was mistaken... I was thinking a graflex was chrome plated. It's nickel... that such a relief. That's a much easier metal to work with.

I found this too... http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/plugnplate.htm

Those little kits aren't bad. If you go up in the catagory if you really wanted to be serious it seems they have quite a few kits for just about any metal.

[Dregan]

XWing, I was just about to point out that you can plate somthing yourself at home, via electroplate process - very, very easy to do, especially for small parts. You can look for kits on eBay, or my personal favorite, www.froogle.com You might have to shell out like $100 for a kit, but then you'd have all the tools you'd ever need to plate something in gold, silver, copper, brass, nickel, pretty much any metal.

To get your dark chrome, the stuff you want to use is nickel oxide. I own two saxophones that are plated with that, and they look awesome. It's a very hard, somewhat brittle finish, so you might want to consider a layer of clearcoat over it.

Oh, and chrome plating plastic isn't all that hard. All you need to do is get a metal (something permeable, like nickel or tin) to adhere to the plastic first, then plate the metal. Take a look at a new car on a dealership lot. All those little chrome insignias are plastic. That's how they get that to work.

[meiv4]

There is a diffrence between black chrome and black nickel, mainly, one uses chromium with a blackening agent and the other uses nickel.
now for some random comparison shots i dug up.

Chrome
http://private.addcom.de/kinokiller/t3/metal.jpg

Black chrome
http://www.ultimatetoys.com.my/New/Cinemaquette/TX/txcloseup.jpg

Black nickel
http://www.midi-classics.com/i/p31241.jpg

yea lighting in diffrent in each shot and it really is hard to take pictures of things that are nearly mirror polished but both the chrome and nickel make nice looking things.

[Eclipse]

Bamm!!!http://alsacorp.com/products/killercans/kc/killerchrome_prodinfo.htm look through all their products they got some crazy stuff to get.
ohhhh I was also thinking of painting My 06 CBR600RR with either a purple chrome or a thermal paint they have.

[xwingband]

Yeah, I was aware of dark nickel... escpecially on saxaphones. I play trumpet and it seems every kid and and the their mother is getting that brand that likes to plate them dark nickel. Needless to say I'm going to get that little kit I linked and grab some other metals too. I've always wanted a kit like that to gold plate my mouthpieces.

Eclipse, I think that can up... maybe it was tetmatek that pointed the alsa stuff out. The problem with that is that it has to be a good finish in the first place which would mean if the graflex I got has pits I'd need to repair those first anyway.

[987654321a]

ok first of all, this is something i have learned, you can only chrome plate stuff thats a magnet can stick to. so grab your graflex and stick a magnet on it, if it doesnt stick then it cant be chrome plated.

[xwingband]

It's brass with a nickel plating... it's fine. I finally got it in the mail. Having a graflex and a vintage one at that... makes me feel like more of an SW fan now. :lol: I'll have to clean the saber up though. It has some rust, no pitting though so it's cool. *sigh* I'm going to wait a bit though to do anything significant with it though.