The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk std chrome versus triple nickle chrome bumpers

Anyone have the new standard chrome bumpers from LMC at $99.95? Any opinion on the quality versus the triple nickle premium at $149.95?

I would go for the premium one. Cheap chrome doesn,t last. You can get by with it if you keep it waxed all the time.

Bills Speed Shop has advertised in Old Cars Weekly for sometime and offers bumpers for our AD trucks for $120. I spoke to them not long ago and these are NOT cheap ones from over the pond. The guy I spoke to says, naturally, that they are of good quality and warranted for 5 years. I think I will try them soon. ***Do we have a stovebolter around Ohio that knows of them or that can "drop by their shop" and check them out for all of us? Their phone # is 330-832-9403. OH, along this line I also got my new LMC winter catalog yesterday and as expected most prices have gone up. The items I checked were up around $5 or $6 on each item in the $20-$60 range. That would be about 10% on most and more on others.

I have one of the cheaper chrome ones on the front of my 52. The price was right, so I'm not complaining. First I sanded the rust off the back where it wasn't plated. Then I painted the back silver, and clear coated the entire bumper. That was a few years ago, and it's starting to rust again.

My friend put the stainless bumpers on his 52. He polished them to get them almost as shiny as chrome. The other day he bumped a post. I commented that if his bumper had been chrome, the chrome would have cracked. With stainless you just polish it out.

So I recommend
1. Stainless
2. Triple plate
3. Chrome, but only NOS, which we can't afford.

Thanks for the advice!

Anyone know of a source for stainless bumpers for a 1958 3100? All I see available are the earlier years.

Think I will go with the triple nickle chrome.

the lmc has some

Fred T, where did your get the stainess steel bumpers from? i want to get some for my sub.

Achipmunk,
Did you ever order the bumpers from Bills Speed Shop and if so were you happy with them, or did you go with LMC?
Thanks,
Mike

i got the one on the front of my 49, at chevy duty, 2 years ago and am very happy with it, it was about 120.00

rock valley has stainless bumpers. they also offer a smoothed bumper that i've been eye ballin. saw their booth at a show they looked good.......dave

Does anyone make a 55 series 2 stainless bumper?

65PanelMike: I have not ordered the bumpers from Bills Speed Shop yet. I have been on a holding pattern due to a couple health issues so its been just "piddling". I have thought about going ahead and ordering them and holding them until I need them to avoid any future price increses. If all goes well I should really make some time up on the panel this summer. I got one pretty good one in some "wheeling and dealing" but I still plan to buy one from Bill's. When I do I will post how it goes.

Isn't all chrome process consist of triple plate:
I was under the impression that they first copper plate, then nickle plate, then the chrome plate goes on. Am I wrong?

there are no laws that define what "triple chrome plating" actually means - just that there are a total of 3 layers of any kind of plating - "triple plate" could be the cheapest version: 1 coat of copper/ 1 coat of nickel/ 1 coat of chrome [always very thin]

normal high quality chroming has the copper and 2 coats of nickel [a semi-bright nickel coat followed by a bright nickel coat], and that's the usual expensive type - I'd expect that "triple nickel" chrome would have had 3 layers of nickel, which is the real corrosion prevention

Bill

I figured that all chrome has various stages of quality depending on more plating and more polishing before certain plates goes on. So what did Fred T mean with his choice #3? All chrome has some kind of plating beneith it, right?

First off I am no plating expert. For 13 years I was supt. at a plant where we did Rotogravure printing on paper using etched printing cylinders. For print cylinders we nickel plated, then copper plated, then etched and last we chrome plated. These print cylinders were "wiped" using a stainless or a blue carbon steel and the chrome would hold up very well....
BUT it all depended on how well the chrome job was done. Did it stay in the tank long enough, was the amps right and was the HARDNESS of the chrome right. We had all kinds of gizmo's to check copper and chrome hardness and when it was not right we could "wipe" the chrome right off a print cylinder. I would doubt, especially foreign made stuff, that they really care and as long as it shines they ship it. Like most things there is more to a process than what meets the eyes but if you want it done right it truly does not cost THAT much more to do a jam up job because the "hard work" is already done before plating.

Spend the extra $50 and get the triple nickle !!

I just got me a pair of 5 rib alluminum bumpers from Briz. They look like the old 40s Desoto Bumpers.
Pretty sharp and with aluminum you never fight rust again, just polish once in a while.

Frank

P.S. they are about $190 each, but probably the last set of bumpers you ever will buy.
http://www.brizbumpers.com/gallery.html