Newly plated gauge cluster

[warren57]

My newly plated 57 gauge cluster arrived back from Al's Plating in Ft. Worth Texas today. They did an awesome job.
Couldn't find a plating shop in Colorado that would do auto parts or pot metal. Contacted James at Al's plating and they welcomed the business.
Pricing was good considering the EPA (another government gone mad agency) has pretty much eliminated plating in this country.
Anyway attached is a picture. I'll post more when I get the new gauges installed.

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

looks good.

[Seajinx]

Very nice job they've done. Be sure and post a pic when it's installed.

[toms57]

Looks real good!!

[chevynut]

You're gonna have to wear shades to drive your car now.

Just curious what it cost to plate it. I'll be looking for a plater soon, and I think I'm already going to try Ogden Chrome. I saw an ad in the Goodguys Gazzette for Advanced Plating and I may get a quote from them too. I'll send them pics and see what they have to say. As soon as I start taking the car apart the bumpers, liftgate and a few other things are going out for plating.

What I like about Ogden Chrome is they pay to ship your parts, then they give you a quote. If you don't like their quote they send your parts back for free. They also have three levels of chrome to choose from, which I think is great and leaves it to the customer to choose.

[567chevys]

That looks shape .Better have the person sitting in the passenger side seat wearing Blinders .

Sid

[warren57]

Shouldn't be any brighter than the rest of the dash trim or the gloss paint they used on the dash itself. Not much different than the chrome on a 55 or 56.

anyway, Laszlo, the cost for this piece was $350. Being painted pot metal and the difficulty in sanding and polishing all the tight curves it was fairly labor intense. It took them 5 plating runs to get all the imperfections filled so they could get a smooth finish. I called a couple other places, both estimated between $750 and $1000 based an amount of prep work on the pot metal.

I have since sent Al's my window moldings, 11 total pieces. They quoted $600 +shipping. Shipping was $55 one way. I called and sent pictures to the place you referenced in Utah, they quoted $55 l/f, which would be $2200-2500 for all 11 pieces. Considering the frames are what, an 1" to 1 1/2" wide and around 50 l/f, price just seemed unrealistic and that was for driver quality finish. I was afraid to ask them what they got for show quality. Don't know what happened to them, seems their prices are one of the highest in the country. More than I can afford anyway. Guess it's supply and demand. There must be plenty of people paying their prices! And you have to box everything up for them to pick-up anyway so you may as well take your box to a shipper.

So, if any members have a line on reasonably priced plating shops, please post the info.

[chevynut]

Wow Warren, I'm shocked at how much Ogden quoted for window moldings. I have a bunch of them plus my headliner bows to do and $55 a LF for them seems outrageous, especially when mine are really good driver quality now. They quoted me $475 per bumper for my smoothies, but at the time I didn't know about the three levels...I thought I asked for show quality. Maybe they've gone up a lot since then. I know Kindigit uses them and maybe that's increased their exposure. Let me know what you think of Al's.

[warren57]

I'll keep you posted. My side frames were in good shape, but the windshield frames were not in the best shape, they looked fine painted, but on the back sides there was a lot of surface rust and pitting. I am curious how they will turn out...