Pitted chrome and paint.

[Seaduck]

I rescued my 1965 Century Plus as a non runner from a dusty corner of a small chandlery a couple of years ago... After a clean and new spark plug it is now used in the murky depths that we call the tidal Medway.

After every use I run it in a drum of fresh water, hose the leg with fresh water, wipe it clean and spray it with a coat of WD-40 then store it in my cabin at the end of my bed ready the next use (usually less than a couple of days later).
Yet despite this luxury life style it now enjoys the chrome on the exhaust, shaft tube and the paint on the prop has started to become lightly pitted it doesn't look bad yet but I don't want it to spread...

Repainting the prop isn't a problem but what paint do I use?

And is there a way to clean and polish the pitted areas of chrome to match the original? or will I have to send the tubes off and have them stripped rechromed £££ I've researched this and discovered that gold plating is cheaper than chrome plating, but a gold plated seagull seems a little over the top!

Neal

[charlesp]

Hammerite Silver smooth finish is a very good match for the silver, and it's sold in Halfords in rattle cans.

Chrome plating is indeed expensive unless you have a batch of stuff to be done. Maybe look around for a local car restorer who may let you put your bits in his stuff?

[Seaduck]

Hammerite Silver smooth finish is a very good match for the silver, and it's sold in Halfords in rattle cans.

Chrome plating is indeed expensive unless you have a batch of stuff to be done. Maybe look around for a local car restorer who may let you put your bits in his stuff?

Thanks .

I didn't even consider Hamerite I didn't think it would cope well with travelling at speed through water.

I've already tried the local car retorers (a Citroen 2CV specialist so no chrome bits) and I'm a member of the Series 2 Land Rover owners club (everything's galvanised)...

The Mclaren F1 car is in a very shiny chrome finish does anyone know if you can buy chrome paint?

Neal

[fortyplus]

There is a paint that is supposed to look like chrome with a bright silver finish available in rattle cans, the problem on the leg would be getting it to stick well to the existing chrome and while it is shiny it won't fool anyone. Durability is another issue which is why the original chrome was a good idea for the application, bar it not perhaps having the rust resistance we'd like.

I have a similar situation on my one 40+, it really is not that bad, but the chrome is rather thin with some light pitting and I know mixing it with water will only make it worse over time. Last time I looked at getting something re-chromed on a motorcycle they charged by weight and had a minimum batch size. I wonder if by speaking very nicely to someone and making it clear there was not hurry for the job to be completed, they might sneak it in with someone else's batch. If I had to do it as a one off, I'd speak to the platers about how to get maximum corrosion resistance from what they apply under the chrome - nickel and copper?

[Keith.P]

You can get a chrome paint, its more of a decorative paint, so won't stand up to much and if you lacquer it, it ends up looking like Hammerite, already tried.

[RickUK]

There just ain't no subsitute for chrome. Get it done, and you'll always be glad you did. Reason for the cost is that the parts has to be stripped back to bare metal, linished, polished, and then re-plated, which comprises a copper flash for adhesion, nickel for corrosion resistance, and chrome to stop the nickel oxidising.
DIfficult to sneak in as part of another batch, as each part has to be treated. The polishing is all handwork, and electrical current relative to the surface area of the work has to be applied to the plating baths.

If you decide to get it done properly, just stress that you do not want the bottom 2.1/2" end of the tube linished or polished as this will affect the fit of the tube in the water pump housing.

Gold plating may be cheaper as literally a minimal flash coating is applied due to the expense, but all the stripping/polishing stages would still have to be done, and it might look pretty(?), but wouldn't have the mechanical abrasion resistance of chrome which is in fact quite high.

[Tony Laycock]

Freeman Cruisers have lots of chrome plated components aboard and this question comes up regularly. There have been posts on their forum about the varying prices of chrome platers and who is the best in each region (UK). Might be worth signing up and checking out what has been said in the past.
Google Freeman forum.

Tony