Chroming

["Bill Sinclair" <bills@domain.elided>]

Robin,

I'll have to agree with Biba about rechroming a mirror.  Just not worth it
when decent replicas are available.  If your original has any pitting (almost
guaranteed) the chrome shop probably won't be able to get them out without
affecting the look of the mirror.  If you have the original fender mount
mirror, IAP and Centerline have a repro for about $50.00.  I'm curious as to
whether Biba recommends mounting the Talbots on the fenders or the doors for
best visibility.  Of course you would only move the location from the fender
to the door if you were already going to paint the car as it would require
filling the old mounting holes.  IAP shows repro script in their catalog for
$48.95 but it doesn't look quite right to me.  I'd be pretty wary of taking
such a delicate part to a plater but maybe a good one could handle it.  I
wasn't aware that the top boot latches were aluminum, as Biba stated, I
thought they were some sort of pot metal.  I had mine chromed about 6 yrs. ago
and it did feel really good to put the shiny ones back on the car.  The
plating shop lost my screws for them though, and I had to use the stainless
ones from a later spider which worked fine in spite of being about a mile
longer than the originals.  Plating fasteners is pretty dicey anyway since
rechroming involves etching material away and then adding new material back.
In the case of screw threads, the chance of having anything close to the
original material thickness is slim.  Even if they tape off the threads some
etching may occur.  It'll be a moot point because they'll lose them anyway.
Which brings us to a final point: take a picture of any parts that you are
having chromed and have a numbered inventory of your parts (a copy of which
the plater should sign) and ask them what their loss replacement policy is.
Even the platers with good reputations have lost parts at some time so if they
seem overly offended they're probably hiding something.  Good luck!

Bill Sinclair
67 Duetto  (with gleaming top boot latches)
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