Chrome plating in PA--reccomendations?

I have a few pieces to be plated. Can any PA, NY, or NJ folks vouch for any platers? I have hear that Paul's is good. Any truth to that?

 

I had Paul's Chrome plate a set of Vespa rear cowls and glovebox door for a custom scooter I am building. The company was very professional, easy to work with, and the plating is EXCELLENT.

The cowls shown are about 2' long if you are not familiar with their scale. Lots of surface to cover, and it looks great.

Having said that, save your pennies, because it wasn't cheap.

 

try Bills custom cycle in Bloomsburg Pa. I have used him. not bad and reasonable.

 

Pauls chrome is the place that we use for our customer cars.Very good quality and good turnaround times.We've spent about $35,000 with them in 2006 .

 

I used Pauls for some time for jukebox plating (on crappy pot metal) and on my '33 Willys. As mentioned, Excellent quality and you pay for it. I used to drive my stuff to them in Mars, Pa. Not sure where they are now. Stay far away from Frankford Plating in Philly (really painful experience with them) Mike

 

I've also heard that Librandi's near Harrisburg is good-there display stuff looks good-but i don't have personal experience with them.

 

Paul is in Evansville.
One of the top plating shops in the USA.
You pay for what you get.

 

I can vouch for Librandi's, excellent work. Usually a 6 week turnaround and yes its expensive, plating is not cheap. As far as Bill's goes if it doesn't matter too much, your sending it down the road then they're OK

 

If you want the ultimate in Pa plating(and everywhere else,IMHO), you have to use Paul's.....he's saved some diecast trim that we thought were done.....but as stated, the price reflects the quality.... I'm doing a 57 SL-190 M-B roadster.....the customer had the trim plated prior to bringing it to me...the chrome looks dark blue/black...it appears to be indusrtial plating...Yeeeeuck! " But it didnt cost me anything..." needless to say, it'll be getting replated....

 

Mike, feel free to elaborate on your story. I live down the road from Frankford and have heard the name before but never gone there.

 

A third for Librandis. They did my pops bumper and grill for his Merc. Great work, but again, not cheap.

-Duck

 

http://www.paulschrome.com/

He's in Evans City, not Evansville. It's a very small and boring town, it's only claims to fame are one of the first oil wells and they filmed the original Night of the Living Dead movie there, oh, and I grew up there...

 

I had a customer that wanted a Wurlitzer bubbler jukebox restored (that's what I do). I went to pick it up and he said he wanted to have his plating done at Frankford. I asked why and he showed me a '55 Chevy that they had done the chrome on. Looked ok to me so I said sure. I talked to Frankford's manager about nickle plating the pot metal castings. He assured me that they would be beautiful. Price was not too hateful so I thought I'd give them a try. I took 3 jukeboxes worth of parts (almost 200 parts) and drove them to Philly. Again assured that pot metal was their specialty.
About a month later, it was ready to pick up. I drove up and took the paper off about 1/2 dozen parts and they looks pretty good. Paid and left. I unwrapped them all the next day and found 3/4 of the parts were pitted and some detail was ground off. I was livid! I called them and they said that was as good as it could be done. I called bullshit and made an appointment to go back up and discuss what they were going to do to fix this mess. I started talking about lawyers and the tune changed to how about we give you some money back? It went on for a while but I ended up with about a 90% refund.
A friend told me of a plater in Miami that could fix the stuff. They did and the customers never knew. Obviously, they could not repair the detail that was lost but it looked good when I got it back. Cost a little more than the refund I got.
It really stuck in my craw how those guys treated me at Frankford and I swore I'd do everything I could to steer people away from them.
One more thing, back then I was using Lemon Grove Plating in California for all my plating. They were the best but slow and relatively expensive. The only reason I looked at another plater was for the time and cost factors. As it turned out, I didn't save either. Went back to using Lemon Grove and was never disappointed. Used them up until the owner died.
Sorry for the long-winded explanation. Still pisses me off when I think about it... Mike

 

I too restore old jukeboxes and soda machines. I like Mike at Niagara Plating in Niagara Falls NY. I have done over 30 project with him> I will post some of his work. He is also the nicest person I have ever done business with.

His # is 716-297-1410

Brian

 

I have to agree with Paul's. I've used them and will do it again.

 

What kind of pricing are we talking about in regards to plating. I have a dash part that has no pits, and I have already stripped it to bare metal. It is about the size of a shoe box.

how about quotes? do these companies give price quotes over the phone or only in person with the part?

tok

 

Paul's does excellent work, but pretty expensive. For the super high quality of work they do, they're reasonable though. They did some door handles for me when everybody else said they were impossible. The door handles were brass crimped over a potmetal core, and needed to be plated up heavy with copper and then shaped back down again to fill in all the craters. Nobody else would touch them. Paul's did them perfectly. If you send parts to them, they send you pictures of all of the items with quotations next to each item.

 

Most platers will only give you a ballpark quote until they actually see the item. It's almost always higher than the ballpark quote when they actually see the item.

 

Hey Tok, Pauls Chrome works like this, you send them the part.They photograph it and price it,then send you a copy of the pics and a form to fill out with all of your info and pricing.You send the paperwork back with full payment,then wait the 4-6 weeks that it says on the paper.Very easy and friendly to deal with.

 

I've used Paul's a lot on our restorations. Very professional company to deal with and top notch work, but ... quality does cost. I tried out another company on a couple of small parts. They offered 3 levels of qaulity and their cheap level (driver qaulity) was maybe a little less than Paul's and when I got the parts back they were crap.

 

Great info guys. Thanks for the heads up. Looks like Paul's is the spot. I need to get the windshield frame and the garnish moldings done on the '39. It's gonna hurt......

 

Don't apologize. I appreciate the story. Sounds like there's no reason to ever go there, and I live down the street from them, so you've done me a favor.

 

metal restorations..
the parts I had were pretty good..
the turnaround time was fair..
and the price was o.k. based on what I know others charge..

i think they are in your 'hood as well..

nel
2127-35 Margaret Street
Phila., PA 19124

one caveat..

they may be somehow connected to frankford plating. (I had heard that rumor..)

 

Glad to help. Hope it keeps others from dealing with them. If you go by there, please pinch a loaf on their front door for me. Me hold a grudge? Naw! Mike

 

I use and swear by Librandi's I have tried Paul's and twice i have had parts that looked great and then on closer inspection we found some spots where they held it on the buffer to long and burned down through. We ran it for a while like that but ultimately it rusted in those spots so we had them re-done at Librandi's. Now i wont use anyone else. My 53 Merc has seen several cross-country trips and been in snow and everything chrome hsnt chipped or pitted yet. Very satisfied with them.

 

I've had some nice stuff done at frankford, some white metal another shop refused they did no probem. But I did have a small plate that was cast aluminum that they kinda f-ed up. As long as it's steel I think it's ok. The price was slightly higher than the initial quote as I recall. Turnaround wasn't toooo bad, but it wasn't exactly fast either.

 

No chrome worth a damn is cheap, unfortunately.
Cheap platers should be avoided as they invariably screw up somewhere.
Expensive platers, at least you can bitch at and deservedly so.
Pot metal and aluminum alloys are bitches because they can grow pores in the pretreatment stages due to heat, chemical attack and polishing. (Occasionally polishing will fill a few pores in soft metals that come out in the wash. Literally!).
I won't touch potmetal.
Before long we'll all be finishing with tin /cobalt and other wierd alloys until the EPA outlaws them at least.

 

I will have to give a thumbs down to Paul's. I sent two Stewart Warner gauge bezels for rechrome. I didn't strip anything off them: rust, chrome, paint, nothing. I guess I just assumed that a fine quality chrome job would include a trip to the stripping tank.

What I got back was a pair of nice shiney bezels, with flakey rust, old plating, and grunge underneath a layer of chrome on the backsides. We'll see how long these last.......

Wasn't cheap either. About $50 for one, and $80 for the other.

 

I have used them for customers through work and they do nice work but costs $$$$$.

Me-oh

 

Hey guys. Late entry here. I am a chrome plater from right outside of Pennsylvania. I work at Lakeside Custom Plating in Conneaut Ohio. Check our video out on youtube or myspace. Give your wallet a break for a while and find better for cheaper. Lifetime warrenty, nice people, and quick turnaround. www.customchromerestoration.com