How to replicate silver cad plating?

I'm restoring a '55 Speedster at work. A few of the parts are silver cad plated. Some of the parts, such as the door latch assembly, do not come apart so they can not simply be replated. Others were full of rust pits that needed to be filled. I'm looking for a paint that will replicate the silver cad finish. I've tried many silvers, including Eastwood's "Silver Cad" paint, but none of them are even close. Anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks for the help.

 

Maybe try flat or satin clear over a silver. The only other thing that looks like cad is glass beaded stainless. Is it possible to metal fill the pitted parts with brazing? brass wire usually takes cad well. As far as the assemblies, our plater educated us on the process and how it really doesn't hurt a lot of parts. We were plating distributor tops that had fiber posts for the points to pivot on, the plating process didn't even discolor the posts.

Also, a good powder coater can fill pits with powder, you might try a silver powder and then VERY lightly glass bead it or even just wet sand it to break the shine if they can't source a flat silver powder.

 

deleted

 

I had a bunch of stuff clear zinc plated. Makes a semi-shiny bright silver color. And if a part was pitted, it wasn't real noticeable.

 

My local plater isn't that expensive. He has a $75 minimum, but said about $15 ea per latch. I took some fasteners (53 pieces) to have plated in zinc, and paid the minimum. When I picked them up I asked how much I could have had and stayed at the minimum and was told about 15-20 pounds.

 

I'd go and plate them, as well, even if you can't dissassemble them. They still come out pretty good...not concours, but nice enough.

 

Eastwood and Caswell have small cad plating kits

Not sure how well they work or don't work, anyone?

http://www.caswellplating.com

 

gkgeiger
Do you have any pics of the stuff you had plated and some contact info for your plater?

I have tried every type of paint possible for Radio covers- None look good. Plating is the only way to go if you want it to look "NOT PAINTED"

 

Deleted, didn't real your first post well enough. You've tried the Eastwood stuff

 

fill the pitted area with jb weld original formula and then do some PC chrome (looks like polished aluminum) or any other silver and clear combo.
have the pc guy powder some 4" electrical box covers (plentiful at lowes ,cheap and big enough of a sample to tell something with) with different silvers so you can hold and compare.