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Consensus on home plating.

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Oddjob:
That's true Ash BUT you'd still have the chemicals etc AFTER plating that lot, you also forgot that Allenchrome gave you a decent price because you did a lot of the prep work for them, you also didn't factor in the petrol etc to take them there and back plus the time away from home. You then have to work out how much it would cost to replace small parts they may have lost but you didn't notice and you can do a thicker coat at home. Gateros told me that typcially they leave in for 15 mins when Gateros recommends 20 mins at the same ampage.

I'd agree though that that much is daunting to say the least, I'd imagine they will still do amounts like that but I wonder how much it would cost these days.

Orcade-Ian:
Ash,
I did find a very reliable local company when we lived in Southport who were not ripping me off but unfortunately with ever increasing 'elf an safety' demands they ceased trading.  Royal mail don't treat us any differently here in Orkney but some couriers either refuse to deliver or impose such eye-watering charges we in turn, refuse to use them, so it's a great advantage doing the stuff yourself and you can do small batches 'as and when' without having lots of stuff dismantled.

The actual prep time can be ignored if you always send stuff away ready prepped, so it's just the plating/rinsing/passivating time - when you can be doing something else anyway!

I wouldn't go back to risking sending small stuff away - obviously I still have to rely on others for Chrome plating.

Ian

AshimotoK0:
Hmm ..being remote I can fully understand Ian's take on this and I admit that I did pretty good prep on the stuff I had done at Allenchrome. However, , he told me I didn't really need that level of prep due to their own prep that is part of their process. The travel factor cost doesn't come into it in my case as either my wife, my son or myself pass there at least once a week. Sadly, they won't now do a batch the size of the one in my pic. They need a full barrel, from a single customer, which is probably about 25 kilos. Julie will confirm this. My experiences on the chemicals is that they do get contaminated after quite a bit of plating (particularly by iron) and the anodes do get consumed. OK you can use hydrogen peroxide etc to restore but it's a load of messing about. Dont get me wrong I do agree with home plating as long as you have the time and patience but it's not particularly cheap...just the amount of Di water you use really adds up.

Oddjob:
Ok, so we all gang together, all members, we all throw our bits into a barrel until it's full, send it away and then sort out who's part is who's when they come back. Can't see any problems with that, can you?

philward:
I had a local plater who did industrial stuff that I used back in the 90's for the stuff on my 1100R/Phil Read Rep resto's. Provided I prepped the stuff, he was good and cheap. Went back to him several years ago and he'd moved to a more 'elf and safety' friendly unit (there's houses built on his old chemical leaky site!) and the cost had gone through the roof - probably H&S related and easier to make money on bigger batches

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