I'm going to have to start sending out some parts for chrome plating soon and I'm looking for input on plating shops. I have a lot of pieces of my Nomad I want plated, and I want to find ONE plater to do everything.

I was thinking about going with Ogden Chrome based on some estimates I got from them the past few years. Yesterday I got a rude awakening from them.

I wanted them to quote show chrome on my smoothie bumpers and told him I have received estimates of $475 each TWICE from their sales guys at Goodguys shows I went to. That was for a factory i-piece bumper. I always thought that was too cheap, so I sent an online request for quote and tried to attach some pics but it failed to go through. So I sent e-mail to their support address and told them that their RFQ page doesn't work. I got a reply from their operations manager (Jose) and he asked for a description of the parts and pictures.

Anyhow, I was very disappointed with the response. He told me that a factory 1-piece bumper was entirely different than my 1-piece smoothie that I welded together. He basically told me that I wasted my time welding the bumper up because they'd have to charge me as much as if they welded it up for me, which is $900-1500 each. He said this is because they will most likely find pinholes in the welds, and my bumpers will need a lot of blocking because they look "wavy" in the pictures. Bullshit. I TIG welded the bumpers and I have ground and blocked the welds for hours, and they're pretty damn flat. What he calls "wavy" is where I welded the holes shut after grinding away the copper, then feathered it in. That's like saying the feathered areas you get blocking primer are "wavy" when the truth is just the opposite. I realize they're going to have to do more blocking before plating, and I told him that. But these bumpers have ZERO damage to them since I fixed it all. He said they would have to copper plate and block at least 10 times. I really don't think it needs anywhere near that amount of work. He said that the MINIMUM cost would be $900 and it could be as high as $1500, but couldn't tell me why the range was so high. He also said their prices have gone up 25% in just the past year.

I can understand being "conservative" but I don't think that's what I was hearing. Ogden says they pay for shipping both ways, and I think they just bury the shipping cost into the plating quote....nothing is free. However, he told me they had a guy in Denver yesterday who could pick up my bumpers. I'm in Texas for the weekend and the bumpers are still on the car so I couldn't do that. I suspect they don't really pay for shipping, they just pick up parts for you which is fine with me. But the cost needs to be competitive.

Anyhow, I think it's ridiculous to tell me that they can build and plate a smoothie for the same price as plating my bumpers. And I think it's ridiculous to claim that my smoothies are any more or much more work than plating a factory one-piece bumper.

So I'm going to look at alternatives. I want show chrome, and I know there will be a little more smoothing to do before plating. I plan to have Sherm's and Advanced Plating give me quotes or estimates. Do you know any other platers that can do high quality work at a "fair" price? What is the going rate you guys have found for bumper plating?