RE: [Chrysler300] Pot metal restoration recommendations?

["Gary Nelson" <gnelson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ray, try Van Nuys Plating in Van Nuys (southern) Ca. Contact Linda @ 1 818
785-5885. They are a family business I have used since 60's. Although they
cannot guarantee work on pot metal, they do excellent repair and triple
plating. Pot metal is unpredictable and can blister after plating. Not cheap
but fair.
Tell Linda I told you to call.

Thank you,
Gary, the parts doc
Escondido, CA  USA
Land of the Avocado
Mail: garythepartsdoc@xxxxxxxxxxxx
760.751.1958






  -----Original Message-----
  From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Ray Melton
  Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 11:54 AM
  To: chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [Chrysler300] Pot metal restoration recommendations?



  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]



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