A couple of months back I was bemoaning the outrageous quotes
I was getting to chrome the small bumpers on my Series I E-Type.
Thanks to all who replied at the time with comments and suggestions.
The quotes I was getting were in the $1-2k range, for pieces that
are really quite small, as bumpers go. Most people attributed this
to the high costs of pollution control in the San Francisco area,
coupled with the fact that replacement bumpers for a Jaguar just
happen to come out in about the same price range.
I tried various ploys like not telling them it was from a Jaguar,
but all the automotive plating shops recognized them instantly
as E-Type bumpers. Their cost estimate invariably came from a
catalog of bumper market values.
To test my theory I telephoned a few of them and said I had a
60's Cadillac (which has about an acre of chrome plating) and
got quotes for less than half of the Jaguar, and I asked for
show quality plating.
I was very disillusioned until I happened to try a small company
just a few miles from home. They do mainly industrial plating
for the surrounding silicon valley high tech firms so I wasn't
hopeful that they would even consider my job. I plonked just one
of the blades on the counter and asked how much. He (the owner
as it turns out) asked if it was from a Corvette. No way, I said
jocularly, and he grinned and said it must be one of them foreign
jobs. Yeah, I said, and we left it at that. Well, he said, I
reckon about $150. Up to now I had been quoted around $150 per
blade, so quick as a flash I sez "You mean $150 for all 4 bumbers?"
Yes that's correct.
Wow!
So now we have a long discussion about how he's going to do them
and I said I wanted triple plating: copper, nickel and chrome
and no grinding away of the original metal. He does all his
plating to military specs, which far exceeds my requirements
he said.
I brought in a box of parts: 4 bumpers, 4 overriders, corner bits,
motif bar AND tail lights. The tail lights were in poor condition
and he grumbled about the difficulty of plating pot metal because
its so thin and any corrosion pits usually go all the way through.
But he agreed to do the lot for $300.
Yesterday I got them all back, after about 5 weeks, and they
look superb. Really show quality stuff, even the tail lamps
came out better than I expected.
So I am delighted not only to have them back, but also to have
found someone who didn't want to rip me off.
The company is
Industrial Plating Company
Frank Aguilar, President (!)
San Carlos California
tel. (415) 593 1046
- Patrick "smilin in me chrome" Krejcik -
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