How to chrome-plate on plastic car parts.

Is it possible to chrome-plate anything? Basically Chrometech can electroplate anything. We can also coat every conceivable base material in a metal of your choice.
The trick with the various materials is in the pre-treatment. The items to be chrome-plated needs to be sealed if it is of a porous nature. Items made of wax, PP or PE requires a special primer prior to coating the item with a conductive layer.
Preparation of the surface is critical as a chrome-plated finish will show up and expose any imperfections. As we said in the beginning we can electroplate anything. The question is: Has the item been engineered for the electroplating process?
In many cases, the dash boards and grills that we receive have not been designed for electroplating. This requires compromises in order to achieve a relative good outcome. For example we may not want to plate the whole item. As such we will only selectively plate the areas that we can be sure will be sufficiently covered with metal to obtain a brilliant shinny surface. In the case of some of the front grills where the louvers are too wide we will recommend not electroplating the bottom side of the louvers and selectively plate only the top that is seen. This will allow more chrome onto the surface where it is required. Needless to say this requires a lot of taping up prior to making the surface conductive. In order to avoid plating on the tape which is also made conductive, we must remove the tape prior to electroplating. This may explain why the costs are somewhat higher than plating on metal. The same item made of metal may require max 1 hour to have an A-1 class job performed on it. In the case of plating on plastic with our process a grill is normally plated for 12 hours at a low current so that we can achieve a uniform deposition of copper, nickel and chrome across the whole grill.
To compensate for the lack of adhesion with this process and to promote the durability, a thick coat of copper, nickel and chrome is necessary. The average thickness of the plating on a grill is 0.2mm compared to 0.02 – 0.03mm (considered a very thick coat) with the conventional plating on steel process.
There are such things as internal anodes that can be made to order for a particular job. These however are extremely expensive and as such are not practical. Chrometech developed its own conductive sensitising media including the various primers. Variations of the conductive media and primers need to be fully understood in order to apply them on the many different types of items that we receive.

Resurrected Austin A 30

Nobody thought it possible to resurrect this Austin A 30 grill. It looked like it was ready to be buried. It was completely rusted through.
When I say rusted I mean rusted. The holes in the previously chromed grill were up to 5mm or more in diameter and some of the metal was paper thin.
There was no chrome to be seen on the grill and I assume some bloody electroplater left it in the strip too long and stripped the hell out of it.
As chrome-plated Austin A 30 grills are not easily available, the customer didn't have much of a choice and availed himself of Chrometech's service.
Chrometech re-structured and fortified the grill with resin and fiberglass, filled the holes with putty, high-filled it, rubbed it back and proceeded
with the activating process prior to chrome-plating the now mostly non conductive grill. The end result was unbelievable.The chrome-plated
Austin A 30 was featured in a car magazine and was brought back to life. If you want to see a picture, contact Chrometech on 02 98999122

A car fit for a King

This RX7 has undergone a five year conversion into a brilliant piece of art. "Jealous Ahura" the name of the car was flown from Malaysia (Apparently the car belongs to a crown prince of Indonesia)
to participate at the Motor ex held in Sydney on July 11th and 12th. It was the first time that an an International car took part in the exhibition. The car has 10.000 Swarovski crystals encrusted, even in wheels you can find crystals. The car
is worth about $ 250.000. All the interior plastic car parts were chrome-plated by Chrometech.
At the show you could find hot rods, street machines,all American car, motorbikes. An auction was held on Sunday. We at Chrometech also participated and had a great response. A lot of people were impressed with the electroplated fiberglass for the hot rods. This opens a market and can add value from just the fiberglass parts to a shinning pride. A lot of cars were at the exhibition that had the parts chrome-plated by Chrometech. If it's good enough for the Prince to use the services of Chrometech, we must talk quality electroplating

WHY IS THE MAZDA RX7 IN HIGH DEMAND?

MAZDA RX 7

Why is the RX7 in high demand?

Apparently it is the rotary engine that has made this car unique.
The rotary engine got its start in the early 1950’s with a German company whose primary focus was manufacturing motorcycles.
Best of all, the RX7's huge success meant that many people discovered the rotary engine for the first time.
At Chrometech one of the most plastic parts that we chrome-plate are from RX7.
From a customer in Malaysia we received Instrument surrounds, Centre console, radio surrounds, air-con panels, door panels, lip pockets, dashboard blowers etc. Come July the RX7 "Jealous" will be the first Malaysian car to compete against 500 foreign cars at the Meguiar's Motor Ex Show in Sydney, Australia.He couldn’t find anyone in Malaysia to produce our quality of Chrome-plating. (We do not vacuum-metallize) We electroplate (copper, nickel, chrome) on plastic and fibreglass. The process of electroplating on plastic and fibreglass is more difficult than performing the same operation on metal.
The result is a smooth mirror finish.

The mentioned customer will fly his RX7 to Sydney to the Motor exhibition on the 11th and 12th of July 2009 at the Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush.
Please come along and you will be able to see the unveiling of the 6 best cars. This RX7 will be one of them. The unveiling will be at 11.00 am on the 11th and for the presentation they will include a traditional “warrior” dance.
So please come along and visit us and the famous customer from Malaysia.

Chrome-plated fiberglass for Hot rod

At Chrometech we are getting ready for a Hot rod show and the Auto salon. We have chrome-plated several fibreglass grills, plastic grills, Honda grills, Commodore badges, Chevrolet badges, gold-plated badges for RX3 (FOR SALE)

(Photo is from a fiberglass belonging to a Hot rod)

I wonder why they call a Hot rod a Hot rod. I looked up on Wikipedia and found the following information.

“Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. Nobody knows for sure the origin of the term "hot rod." One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another explanation is that the mufflers were exposed and thus there was a "hot rod" or hot muffler neck when the vehicle was running. Open roadsters were the cars of choice to modify because they were light. Hot Rod may also refer to the connecting rods, cam, or pushrods inside the engine or to the exposed frame rails of such an automobile. It has also been noted that burning out the connecting rod bearings was a very common failure mode for souped up four-cylinder Fords, particularly the Model T, and "hot rod" could refer to that phenomenon. It was adopted in the 1930s or 1940s as the name of a car that had been "hopped up" by modifying the engine in various ways to achieve higher performance.The term can also apply to other items that are "souped up" for a particular purpose, such as "hot-rodded amplifier".”

Anyway I thought that that was interesting. Besides Chrome-plating plastic car parts, we are busy Chromeplating MTV awards.

Once upon a time pre-Victorian Europe apparetnly mostly the aristocratic men wore lace nad the women were plainer.

But today's men and women alike wear lacy and sheer underwear. It may be in the form of G-Strings, Thongs, Tangas or whatever they call them.

Chrometech can Chrome-plate on any material such as plastic, fiberglass, cotton, silk etc. Lacy undies are made of cotton and Lycra to hug and stretch in all the right places.

Many of us are blessed with healthy backsides worthy of an award.

That's exactly what we did; an award for an underwear company. I don't know what the occasion was to create this award, but it sure attracted some comments when it was in our showroom.

Our Logo is "You name it we Chrome it"

This could be a breakthrough for the fashion industry to electroplate chrome onto fabric

For men with balls of steel

For those of you with balls of steel (males or females) this groin protector or Hector protector would certainly be a status symbol. Before the wedding of our daughter the guys had a bucksnight and went to have a game of Paintball shooting. Everyone had a good time. The guys are tough and all came back with bruises, this game must hurt. Lucky each guy bought a Hector protector. Of course you must protect the family jewels, why not with chromed re-inforced ones! If some of our great amorous sporting legends would keep their tackle in the protectors, instead of letting the mongrel run loose, they would have avoided some embarrassing headlines. I think sports people should start a new sporting novely and bring the Hectors to Chrometech to have them chrome-plated. Imagine a bunch of cricket players groping into their undies at the end of the match, ripping Hector out (hopefully with no little bits stuck to it) and then auctioning them off for charities.

Now that would be an intimate memento.

What do you think about Chrome-plated or chromed Hector protectors?

Give me your thoughts.

Bronzing (Ancient electricity)

The most likely use for electricity among the Parthians would have been the electroplating (sometimes referred to as bronzing) of figurines, an advance on the art of gilding which dated back centuries before them. The battery could have been used to apply a voltage between a metal statuette and an ingot of gold while both were immersed in an electrolyte. Gold would have been transferred through the liquid to be deposited as a thin film on the figure’s surface.

Similar clay pots have been found at other sites near Baghdad. They are a salutary reminder that our conceptions of mankind’s historical development are often based as much on ignorance as on knowledge of skills of a particular period.

Static electricity was known to the ancients: they knew, for instance, that when amber (in Greek elektron) was rubbed, it would attract light objects such as dust and hairs. So the technique of generating electrical current -which is electric charge in motion-, could have been an equally haphazard, isolated discovery centuries before it’s generally recognised initial use. Neither finding seemed to lead to further technological development or insight into the causes of the phenomenon, however, although some enthusiasts have claimed that the Parthians- and, before them, the ancient Egyptians – used electric light.

There are, indeed, enough soberly accredited anomalies of technology from the past to keep us well aware that some of our ancestors did develop their technology- and to astonishingly high levels.

At Chrometech we specialize electroplating (bronzing) and chrome-plating on non-conductors; any base material but not metal. In order for us to electroplate or chrome-plate the organic materials (plastic car parts), we need to make it conductive with a conductive paint. Then a small hole needs to be drilled to attach the wires to conduct the electricity.

We really chrome-plate or bronze about anything. Our logo is: If you can imagine it, we can chrome it.

In about 3 weeks I will have a new webpage with a photo gallery so that I can show you what we actually can and do bronze or chrome-plate

We get a lot of phone calls from women asking us about the price for full body bronzing. Sorry ladies that’s not what we bronze.

Anything impossible can be chromed

Electroplating was invented as early as 1805 but was later rejected by the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. This caused the inventor to suppress any further publication of his work. Untill today many people think it is impossible to electroplate on plastic.Although electroplating on plastic is a difficult process and very labour intensive Chrometech can make it happen. We coat the items to be chrome-plated with a conductive paint. After that it will be immersed into the plating copper bath for several hours, sometimes up to 24 hours. After the copper bath it will go into nickel and last but not least into the chrome bath.

Our business has been operating since 1993 in Australia and as far as we know we are the only company that can and do chrome-plate on plastic. We do not vacuum-metallize like most people do.

Gold-plated car engine.

Gold-plated engine part.

It never stops amazing me to what extend car lovers go. This is not the sort of thing you find in your average car. This engine has been electroplated with 24 k gold. (Some people must have a lot of money.)
This is not the average work we normally do. At Chrometech we are very creative and oblige to the customers wishes. Our Logo is" If you can imagine it, we can chrome it." You will be surprised what other things besides plastic car parts customers bring in to us for chrome-plating.