Re: [Chrysler300] Pot metal restoration recommendations?

["tomlin" <tomlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ray,
  I used George Iverson, in MN, to repair the potmetal across the back of my 1964 300-K.  He advertises in our publication under STAINLESS repair, but did a very fine job on the pot metal.  He does not do the plating, but sends it out to someone else (whom I believe is a plater in Dubuque, IA, but can't swear to that).  Thus I can not tell you what plating they use other than it looks original and looks GOOD.
  George cleans up the pits, then solders them full and sands them level.  Then has them plated and returned to himself.
  I had the pot metal across the back of my white 300-K, which I still have, done by another plater in IA.  I was not satisfied with his work.  He stripped, then copper plated, then sanded, and copper plated, etc, trying to fill the holes.  In the process I lost some of the crispness of the lateral bars, and the build up in the corners was noticeable.  The smooth plate behind the Chrysler letters, on the gas filler door, came out a bluer color if you know what I mean.  I mention this as the quality between the two was like night and day!
  Now, having said all that, I do not recall what George charged.  I do remember it was about the same as the other had charged many years before, so I expect the potmetal across the back of my K cost in the neighborhood of $1200 to repair and replate.  But then it is a lot of potmetal to fix.
  I would contact him.  He is a 300 club member, is honest as the day is long.  Naturally I expect there are others out there, but he is one I know and would recommend.
Tim Tomlinson
W. Central IL
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ray Melton 
  To: chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 1:53 PM
  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

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