Hi all: I have a friend who was a high muckity muck with Fujitsu in Japan. He took some pieces from my 300F and had his factory plate them They were all plated under vacuum. They look really nice and he said they would never pit as all the air had been drawn out with the vacuum. Of course it would be too expensive to send pieces over to Japan. But why don't companies here use vacuum technology? I think Fujitsu uses vacuum to capture the vapors emitted by the plating process. Dan Reitz Bell Canyon, CA In a message dated 8/6/2013 2:56:12 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, george@xxxxxxxxxxxx writes: Ray Frankly, the very best I have ever seen done is Custom Chrome Plating in Grafton, OH. Long wait...6-10 weeks and costly. George On Aug 6, 2013, at 12:53 PM, Ray Melton <rfmelton@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Hello Group - > > In the midst of restoring my late father's 1957 Chrysler 300C convertible, I > decided that the door handles needed to be refinished - I originally thought > they looked good enough (visually about 9/10) with only a few tiny pits, but > soon the rest of the car was looking so good that it began to make the door > handles look a bit shabby, although nothing broken and only a half-dozen or > so pin-hole sized pits and zits on each of the pull-up parts of the handle. > I sent the handles, minus attached linkage (four pieces: the stationary part > and the moveable handle part) to a place in Fresno that bragged about their > beautiful work, particularly on restoring pot metal motorcycle parts - their > website shoed a dozen excellent before/after examples. I said that of > course I wanted the tiny pits and zits filled, not just sanded away, which > would have badly degraded the decorative horizontal ridges in the pull-up > parts of the handles. Two months and $300 later the parts came back with > deep, shiny chrome over the totally untouched tiny pits and zits, which > actually highlighted the small defects! When contacted about the > unacceptable work, the shop manager said, "I think they look pretty good; > I'd put them on my car", and refused to refund my money! However, he > offered to re-do them to a better standard if I would pay him $75/hour for > an indeterminate number of hours to refinish them like should have been done > in the first place! Needless to say, I don't want to do business again with > a shop that harbors that attitude! > > Then I looked in Hemming's and selected a place in Pennsylvania with the > best-looking and best-sounding ad, and a month later received their estimate > of $1013! That huge number just seemed so far out of line (I was thinking > more like $500) that I had the handles sent back to me untouched. To their > credit, they didn't even charge me for the return shipping - clearly a > stand-up place. > > So now I am appealing to the collective experience of other Club members for > recommendations on where to have this work done, hopefully with a short > anecdote regarding their experience in terms of work quality and cost. > Also, I would like to know whether the shop uses the three-step > copper-nickel-chrome process, and whether they use the old-school hexavalent > chrome (renowned for its deep luster but severely restricted by the EPA) or > the later trivalent chromium (less onerous EPA regulated, but said by some > to not quite match up to the deep luster of the hexavalent chrome). While I > don't consider the hexavalent vs. trivalent issue to be the priority > consideration, it would be interesting to know what was used on your parts > pot-metal parts. > > Any help will be much appreciated! > > Ray Melton > > Las Cruces, NM > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To send a message to this group, send an email to: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or go to http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chrysler300/join and select the "Leave Group" button For list server instructions, go to http://www.chrysler300club.com/yahoolist/inst.htm For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylangYahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To send a message to this group, send an email to: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or go to http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chrysler300/join and select the "Leave Group" button For list server instructions, go to http://www.chrysler300club.com/yahoolist/inst.htm For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylangYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chrysler300/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chrysler300/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: Chrysler300-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Chrysler300-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: Chrysler300-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/