The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop dont bother with cheap chrome grills

bought my chrome grill from LMC - it looked great on the surface

cost as much to ship it to japan as the grill cost to buy

a year on and its just a pile of rust

covered in rust spots

the truck has probably only driven 50km so this is rust coming through the chrome

waste of money.

if i had to do this again id have the original grill re chromed as its a better quality base.


buyer beware


added: hood emblem is also showing signs of corrosion....

darn

I would also like some more feedback on the quality of repro grilles and trim. I have decent pieces but rechroming is expensive. But like Dr.Mike said, should I even bother looking at repros?

Installed our repo grille before paint and had to file the ends flat because it was digging into the fenders. The support braces are the wrong color so it needs to be disassembled and repainted to make it look more correct, in other words a lot of work for the price.

Following the recent demise of my original painted grill,I just received a new aftermarket chrome grill which,according to the blurb is a triple plate.....time will tell.

I just hope it stands up better than the repop tail-light housings!

When they say "triple plate" They make it sound as if its something special.
Triple plate is -Copper, nickel, and chrome.
The correct way is copper, nickel, chrome.
Somebodys getting the weiner dog walked all over them.
Theres a co. that takes their wrinkled up, chrome parts to Good Guys meets and brags about their triple plate chrome work,,,,until you unwrap it for a good look.
Those Boyz should be ashamed of themselves.

Don't know if there is more than one original source most vendors use. My grill had sharp points on the ends that had to be filed. Its about 4 years old and still looks new but the truck is stored inside and only rarely in the rain.

I copper, nickel and chrome plated print gravure rollers for many years. What we get is just CHEAP. The hardness of each component can be controlled and also the build up. What we get is mostly just a "FLASHING" of the chrome.
Sad that the prices we pay should be for really good stuff and but we get cheap crap......just don't get me started!!!

Judging by the comments original pieces rechromed is the way to go?

FOX, take your fat wallet and all your credit cards! Not a cheap fix for sure. But if you want quality it is the only way to go. Be sure to research your chrome shop before you commit.

a good shop can paint it to look like chrome, sure enough,
I saw it on Tv..............paint it anyway.. to much chrome is bad..lol

I'm working on putting the '41 back together. Thought it would be amusing/interesting to find out how much it would cost to have the grill (upper and lower pieces) re-chromed.

I contacted a reputable shop and he said....it will be cheaper for you to buy a new one. I said, so more that $1500 and he replied "yes". I made a remark about the quality (or lack of it) of re-pop and he agreed.

He went into great depth of what they did to rechrome a piece and I got it. I asked him what I should do to it if I wanted to have in rechromed down the road, and he said just shoot it with some Rustoleium spray paint to keep it from rusting. Anymore than that will cause more work when we get ready to rechrome it.

My pockets aren't that deep.

I came to the same conclusion when I redid my '55 2nd. The original chrome grill was 60 years old. Just surface rust, but the chrome was just worn out. I painted it with Rustoleum Metalic Silver, and cleared over with Crystal Clear Enamel. Going on 3 years now, and grill still looks good, save for a few rock chips, some day I may repaint if needed.

I have wondered about some of the chrome paints? Have you tried chrome paint instead of the silver? My 54 has a painted white grill. High on my list is removing and repainting it. I eventually want a chrome one but I can't spend the money right now with all the other work I am doing on it. I am willing to try a chrome finish paint if others have achieved good results.

Yes, I tried the Rustoleum Chrome, and did not like the look. It is just another silver, doesn't look like chrome at all. And the instructions on the can say not to clear coat over.....

Cambridge Custom Chrome did a 1954 Chevrolet truck grill (and a variety of small parts) for me. Their technique sounds good, and the appearance of their work looks real nice.

Cambridge Custom Chrome
1051 Clinton Street
Buffalo, NY
14206

Phone: 1 800 268 9935
Email: ccc@cambridgecustomchrome.com
Fax: 1 (800) 288 - 5530

Canadian address is here.

They are Canadian and they can receive/send parts in the USA and/or Canada. They were very professional with regards to providing a quote and in scheduling/turning-around the parts.

every single piece of aftermarket chrome bolt ons on my once nice looking truck now look like s**t

really bad rust on all of it.

3 months old rear lights and brackets - covered in rust and dont get me started on the grill......

really terrible waste of money


my conclusion,

painted originals over chromed repros may not look as good short term but long term will look better. id take clean paint over rust streaked chrome anyday

so much of a chrome finish depends on prep that the labor can be a bit pricey , especially with a good polisher.

OF course ,regulations in the chroming business have affected the quality that is available

Darn hazardous waste.

Chrome plating here is very price. The reason I believe are the environmental concerns. To plate my grille they wanted $1000, those metal running board step plates $200. I prefer paint given those prices.
My buddy has a 1936 English Ford. looks like an American 36 Ford but about half the size. Two bumpers and five hubcaps cost him $2200.

Has anyone tried using powder coating? They have a new chrome powder coat that my buddy used on a motorcycle. Not sure if that would work.

Chris

I powder coated my front bumper in the new chrome color. Not like real chrome but I'm happy with it.
You can find a photo here:
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0NGqkRUiGr3Gag

Your truck looks great. I checked out the photos on the link. The grille and bumper look like real chrome.

I can't wait to see what chrome powder coat paint looks in person. Thanks for sharing. Jeffrey

Ssrjim, you've come a long way on your Jimmy. Nice job!

I remember the days before anyone was making cheapo repop grills.

I used to carefully disassemble original grills and then send the outer bars to the chrome shop for triple plate show chrome.

While the outer bars were in the chrome shop I sent all the back bars & grille uprights to the powder coater.

The finished product was nicer than Chevy ever ran off the assembly line.

Finally quit restoring and selling original grills because it got increasingly difficult to find grills that were not twisted & bent up.

In addition, no one wanted to pay the price for all the time & labor involved, and all I heard was....

" That's too expensive... I can get a new chrome {LoL} grill for $395 ".

Still have that pile of pristine original grills that have no dents or rust at all but, I only keep them on hand for my projects.


.

Just the bumper is powder coat. The grill is a repop.

Thank you.

I am getting ready to powder coat valve cover and side plate on my 216. I am considering other pieces that are farther away from the actual chrome so maybe it won't be so obvious.

Your truck looks great!

Chris

Every time I start a section of the truck, I keep forgetting there is stuff I don't have to paint! Thanks for the reminder.

I know this is an old thread but if you haven't bought chrome paint yet,save your money.
In order to get my original painted grill back to some form of driver quality,I bought some 'chrome' paint,made if I remember by Hycote.

I had a couple of damaged bars and opted to strip the grill to individual parts,repair what was required and repaint etc.

Here's the finished result, it was far from chrome but after putting it all back together the last thing I wanted to do was repaint it!

You cannot top coat the paint,it's soft as heck and simply didn't stand the test of time,the lustre died and it had rust through within months.
Long story short,don't waste your $$$,put it to good use and have your original re-chromed.

Edit: Even just washing it with ordinary car shampoo was enough to knock the gloss off...it really is THAT soft.

Nice ride!
Sad to see it took the fender bender to solve the chrome grill issue. Great pic's I am now going to revisit the idea of those rear speakers you installed.

thats a good looking truck. quality job

My painted grill.

http://s1006.photobucket.com/user/r...715_zpsixzvtbdk.jpg.html?sort=3&o=11

It wasn't in great shape. I had to weld a couple of the bars back in place. I then blasted it, epoxy primed it, body worked it, primed and sanded it a few times before paint. I just couldn't justify spending the $3k to have the quality of chrome I would have been happy with.

The truck also gets used by my employee's and more than one of them has a habit of running in to things, so I also wanted something I could repair easily...