Chrome Platers - Again...

[peteski]

On 10/14/2018 at 2:59 PM, Lorne said:

First time using Chrome Tech wasn't too bad, they responded on my email inquiry when asked if they had received "in good order", also the plating was good! . Sent another batch to them a year later and,...... wow! they really dropped the ball !!!!! I only used half of the parts the other half looked like they were dropped in a dust bin! They did not take the time to clean of the surface (dust particles underneath the chroming)!!!! Don't want to scare you off, I'm certain they are on the up and up. But, I am a paying customer and was really disappointed. Im surprised they don't have a quality assurance and a quality control person checking their plating. Social media can kill a business if you receive poor service. 

Same here - dust in the "chrome".  Of course I was offered a free re-plating, but I wasn't about to try stripping the inferior finish on many delicate parts.  Too much hassle.  I'm not going back.

[Paul Hettick]

Hopefully I get some clean plating, if it needs re doing, I'll send it somewhere else.

[DEL]

Well, I would have no problem racking my own parts and making them clean prior to chroming, unless the chromer specifically preferred I did not.  I could get them as clean as possible then put them into a fresh ziplock bag to try to reduce contaminants re-introducing themselves.

Also it follows a basic protocol I had when I was restoring copcars that required painting: do as much of the tedious detail edge stuff you can do yourself. For one reason it was where the paint job would start to come undone in short border if not done properly. And secondly and most important since it is a fairly crucial step almost no one you pay to do work for you is going to do it as accurately and cleanly as you would do the job yourself. Simply because to them, your job is just one of many that come in and out their door in the course of business.  But of course your job matters to YOU much more than that.   So, the old 'if you want it done right" axiom.

Thanks, guys for the contact info and all the input.  Plenty to think about.

[peteski]

On 10/15/2018 at 6:04 PM, peteski said:

Same here - dust in the "chrome".  Of course I was offered a free re-plating, but I wasn't about to try stripping the inferior finish on many delicate parts.  Too much hassle.  I'm not going back.

Just to show why I declined the free re-plating offer, I rack my own parts, with many parts being small and delicate pinned to the rack. I wasn't about to try to strip those.  Here is a photo of one of my racks (some parts and pieces of the rack itself have been removed at the time I took this photo).

[DEL]

No offense Pete but I would have a heckuva time seeing any impurities in chrome work on those parts. at least by the pic. They look nice!  Small objects with many twists and turns and bump ins & outs lend themselves somewhat to playing tricks on the eye. Like trunk & door jambs & openings on 1:1 cars.

My analogy is when I cleaned up or changed colors on a car.  The big open flat panels of the hood, doors roof & trunk those were the hardest to cover blems and make right.  And yet, all that bent, curved and twisted & formed metal-work in the door jambs; a painters dream almost. Once you get past scuffing it up to make it stick once the color goes on then a good coat of lovely clear and ALL of it looked beautiful.  Hard to screw up a door jamb.

Edited October 18, 2018 by DEL

[peteski]

2 minutes ago, DEL said:

No offense Pete but I would have a heckuva time seeing any impurities in chrome work on those parts. at least by the pic. They look nice!  Small objects with many twists and turns and bump ins & outs lend themselves somewhat to playing tricks on the eye.

The larger parts were already cut of of the rack in the photo. The one was not all that bad.  I don't have the parts which had the worse flaws anymore.  I posted the photo to show that that I rack the parts myself and that for me stripping and re-plating would not work due to the extra work involved.

[DEL]

Got it.  I understand..

[Rocking Rodney Rat]

Here's the form from LMKco. As you can see it's a few years old now. I used ChromeTech for years, met Bob once when I was in WI through a mutual friend. I decided to give LMKCo a try. The plating was fine except for four hairpin radius rods (from the Revell Parts Pack 'Chassis Speed Equipment') which came back all bent and warped. I'm not sure why that was. I can say that overall the LMKCo plating seemed to be thinner and smoother than ChromeTech. As I recall, the turn around time with ChromeTech was a few months while LMKCo was 30 days or so. My $.02 and worth both pennies... -RRR

Edited October 19, 2018 by Rocking Rodney Rat

[sbk]

 

[Tom Geiger]

Send your parts to me!

I'll brush paint them all Testors silver!

I'll mail them back 6-9 months from now.

Not responsible if paint never dries!