When you take the trim off your '60 you will find that the back does look like stainless which adds to the confusion. To get chrome to really "work" the sub surface must be highly polished and the back side of the trim would obviously not have been polished. Thus you get a "flat" look that again resembles stainless. Secondly this is not chrome plating in the common sense but flash-plating. A plating so thin you can take it off with a buffing wheel. Therefore it would not be subject to cracking as it has not cracked on bent pieces that I have. One thing I discovered when buffing and sanding is that the original chrome surface is harder and more resistant to scratching than the bare stainless. I think this may be the primary reason for doing it, that and weather resistance. Of course this would make even more sense if a part were subject to abrasion like a rocker, as you
mentioned. My other cars' stainless dulled over the years but not the trim on my Imperial, the stuff looks like a mirror after 44 years. To add to the confusion you can't tell by just looking. You have to actually do some sanding or buffing on the piece to expose the stainless and even then you have to hold it in the sunlight to see the difference. I would tell you to not do anything more abrasive than a hand applied creme polish and some elbow grease to clean these parts. Just use caution unless the piece really needs repair work as some of my parts did. Once you have gone through this finish there is no going back. Thanks to everyone for the input.
Richard Burgess
1960 Imperial "LeCrown" Sedan
lecrown60@xxxxxxxxx
RandalPark@xxxxxxx wrote:
Today I drove my '63 Imperial to my body man for an estimate on some work. I mentioned to him the ongoing discussion about Imperials having chrome plated stainless steel trim parts. He is familiar with polishing stainless, but his shop would normally send this type of work out to be done elsewhere since it is too time consuming. He said that he didn't remember this about Imperials, but he hadn't worked on very many Imperials other than mine.
He inspected the chrome on the '63 and concluded that in his opinion, the stainless steel trim probably was not chrome plated. He gave three reasons why he believed this.
They are:
1) Highly polished stainless trim will exhibit a sheen when examined under certain lighting conditions and at certain angles. Chrome plated parts typically do not share this characteristic unless they have been rubbed (incorrectly)with a fine
abrasive and, even then, the sheen is noticeably different. On chrome plated parts this would look like fine scratching rather than a sheen. He added that this sheen produces reflective qualities that contributes to the beauty of the trim pieces. This sheen will always be present in polished stainless.
2) In areas where there is damage, a plated part would exhibit splitting or cracking of the plating depending on the type of damage, where as polished stainless would simply bend, and possibly become scratched. The difference between scratched stainless and split plating is obvious and easy to see.
3) After years of weather, plated surfaces show evidence of spider webbing. The extent of this is dependent on the amount of exposure to the elements, but is almost always present in some degree in older chrome plated parts. Polished stainless does not age in this way.
After inspecting various trim pieces on my '63 he determined that the stainless trim on my car was not
chrome plated. He felt that he could be about 75% sure of this without taking the parts off the car and inspecting them closer. He also believed that chrome plating stainless would be unnecessary in most cases since it can be highly polished anyway, and actually the plating would be more susceptible to weathering.
One area where he thought that there may be plated stainless on my car and he has seen it before on other makes, is on the rocker panel molding. This would help to provide extra resilience to damage that could result from small stones, although marks would still be produced, it would take longer to become dull looking. Polished stainless that has been pelted with stones a great deal will become very dull and look almost like tarnished aluminum. Chrome plating could delay and possibly prevent the part from becoming completely dull.
He also said that if the parts are removed from the car, the back of the parts would usually look "plated" and this would be easy
to see. This coming summer I plan to remove some of the trim from my '60 LeBaron. It will be interesting to see if this plated look will be visible.
Paul
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