Im loooking to send out a set of wheels to get chromed, my local chromer wont touch them...Any leads would be great
I've yet to see a chromer that'll plate steel wheels. Too many tight spaces to guarantee the plating will cover correctly is what I'm told. I know it was done in days of old, but Its waaaay cheaper now to just buy new chromies. They will quickly rust in the recesses in left out in the weather at all.
I dont think they make 40 ford style wheels new in chrome reverse?, and theses wheels are apart right now, so they could get chromed and welded up after
Wheelsmith does very nice quality and have bought several sets from them. They will reverse or do any back spacing since they are custom made when you order them. very quick turn around too. http://www.thewheelsmith.net/
Have you tried Vintiques for a purchase? They do custom backspace and reversing for a fee. It's worth a phone call. They are in California, so there will be shipping costs. http://www.wheelvintiques.com/wheels/hot-rod/gennie-chrome.html
There's special 'fixturing' involved for plating wheel rims and very few platers are equipped to do it.
My chrome plater years ago had no issue as long as I had them split so he could do a decent job. It was then up to me to get them trued and welded back up again when finished. A bit of silver frost on the welds and done.
these are for the Les popo 40, currently produced chrome wheels will be incorrect for the restoration. He needs the tapered rim, look at the pics. that is why he was asking about who plates wheels. the plater will have to build an annode for the wheel centers so the plating will get into the lug nut area, even with the wheels apart. I had wheels plated for my outlaw clone but I didnt care about the part that got covered up buy the merc hub cap. I would think that any good plating shop could do this. I have had good luck with AIH custom chrome in Dubuque Iowa
Good luck. Only plater I could find willing to do a set of old slots for me quoted me $600.00 per wheel. That was 3 yrs ago.
what ever happened to rally america? @wheelkid ? they used to make and sell the exact wheels needed for this car
ok cool and thanks for the input guys, and mark is your guy local?would be great to find someone driving distance, shipping a set of wheels boths ways cant be that cheap haha, gotta save where i can
Wheelkids place burnt down. Don't think they ever got back up and running? PM Brian Bass, he has a place down South he uses.
I talked to Stockton about it before, he will do original ford centers in a 5" wide shell for $355 per wheel chromed. There are a lot of horror stories about that place though so be aware.
Is it at all feasible to remove the centers, and have everything polished and plated, then reinstall the centers again? I realize it's a critical, and labor intensive job, but if there are no other option?
yes stu d baker, yes its going have to come apart, I think 2 or 3 wheels are already done, just screwed together for now,
Once the wheels are apart, doesn't that make the chrome process more doable? I know how they are done originally, and that original process seems to be uncomplicated for a plater. Or, is it still an issue with plater's doing the hoop?
I would think once the wheels were apart that's a different game.... Most platers could handle that. I am surprised that welding after chroming doesn't cause some issues.
Mike, I've been using the guy in Asbury Park on and off for some things. Super Chrome, or something like that. Guy's name is Robert. I'm dropping off in a week or so, so I'll check.
The things to remember is plating is both line-of-sight and it will attach to the first surface it comes to. You have to 'draw' it into recesses with 'fixtured' anodes, and a recess could be defined as anything deeper/lower than about 1" next to the surrounding surface. So just plopping a rim hoop in a plating tank without doing this will give a rim with great plating on the 'outside' surfaces (the area under the mounted tire) and about 1-2" in from the rim lip. The closer you get to the center, the less plating you'll have and it can be zero if the recess is deep enough. Same thing goes for the wheel centers around the lug nuts on OEM type wheels; that's why when they rust, this is where it almost always starts. Same reason plated aluminum wheels start going bad from the recesses out; thin plating in these areas. Commercial wheel outfits that offer plated wheels are set up with this special fixturing (assuming they do plating in-house) but few 'regular' plating shops are and don't want to hassle with it because they can't compete price-wise on a handful of pieces or may not have the needed stuff to fixture it.
Since your wheels are disassembled, it's surprising that you're having trouble getting them plated. If they were still in one piece, it would be different. I had the wheels on my 34 Chevy plated in January 2014 at Quality Plating in Sterling Illinois. http://www.qualitychromeplating.com/ The wheels are original 55 Chevy. Before they were chromed, the rivets were drilled out and the centers removed from the rims. After the centers and rims were chromed, they were trued and welded back together. Silver paint was used on the welds. They turned out really nice. They did have to be disassembled to be chromed. Quality Plating wouldn't touch them if they were left in one piece. I did start out with some very nice pit free wheels, though. For the rear, new 7 inch rims were used on the original 55 centers. The fronts are all original 55 Chevy, chromed and reversed. Course, Sterling ILL is quite a way from New Jersey.
There's a couple of places out here in California. Here's the links: http://www.calchrome.com/ReChrome http://wheelcosmo.com/services http://jasonswheelrepair.com/ http://chromeplating.com/?_vsrefdom=adwords&gclid=CMb0ldCN6csCFYqPfgod8WIEXg
Advanced plating in Nashville TN did some for a friend a few years ago. Did an awesome job to. His were 53 Chevy wheels with the centers taken out and plated separate from the hoops. http://www.advancedplating.com/site/
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