"Tri" chrome process is copper, nickel then chrome. Be aware that copper will adhere to rusty surfaces whereas nickel will only adhere to sound clean surfaces.

If you really must have a chrome finish on your handwheels it will end up being cheaper to buy new ones .

There is a difference between hard chrome and brite or decorative chrome – hard chrome is chromium plated directly to the parent metal and is typically used on piston rods , bearing and seal journals because of its low friction and hard wearing qualities and can be built up many thousandths deep , it is not overly corrosion protective as chromium is porus so for harsh enviroments a thin nickel base plating is used .

Decorative chrome is plated over copper and or nickel base plating and the chrome is only a few tenths of a thou thick .

The labour cost alone these days to strip , clean up and re plate will be pretty steep and its not just a matter of chucking it in a tank and turning the power on , they have to be jigged up and anodes sorted or made to get the chrome to plate in everwhere then you have to find a shop that wants to do it as used cast iron or cast steel will have oil impregnated in it and this can cause all sorts of problems in the plating process ,

If it were my machine and i wanted to improve the look i would maybe fork out to get them stripped then polish the rim and knob with 600 grit emery or wet and dry then paint the spokes and hub , many old machines had this and a little light oil on the polished parts will slow the rust down .

I can't say i like chromed handles i fitted some to my mill and find they are to slippery but at least they are better than the plastic junk that it came with !

Ian

Hard chrome plating = think hydraulic rams, m/c fork stanchions. Ground to size post plating

Decorative chrome plating = shiny things, think m/c headlamp shells, car door handles, even… lathe hand wheels.

Me, if the component to be chromed is a part of an original, valuable item i'd re-chrome it. If not, and good quality replica items are available cheap, i would'nt……

Actually it should be a 4 stage process. The nickel should be put on in two different layers under appropriate conditions. The outer layer of nickel corrodes sacrificially leaving the inner layer intact to prolong the period before rust gets through. This undercuts the chrome and eventually causes the chrome to flake off but leaves a dull nickel face for a few more months.

The handles on my ML7 were all in pretty much the same shape, I just stripped them down and using various grades of emery, removed all the grot and pitting, then wet & dry papers until I'd got a good shine on them, gave them a wipe with an oily rag and they've been good as gold ever since.
Might not be quite as shiny as chrome, but quicker and cheaper than plating, depends really whether you want a showpiece machine or a decent looking workhorse, but if chrome is a must, then personally I'd buy new handwheels.

John.

If you do want to rechrome you could do a lot worse than this lot.

**LINK**

They will triple plate for you.

I used them for a complete set of rechroming for a Yamaha 750, so quite a lot of bits and it was around £300 – £400 quid if I remember correctly.

Ask them and find out a price. It does get cheaper the more you send up to a point though, so ask your mates if they want anything done at the same time.

As far as the company goes your stuff will go in with a batch so the only extra for doing one offs is keeping track of who owns what.

regards Martin

Edited By Martin Kyte on 14/07/2017 11:17:05

I had a tatty handwheel on an old tailstock where the chrome was missing in areas around the rim – not worn but 'chunks' missing. I was surprised at how thick the plating was and how difficult it was to get the remaining chrome off.

After a while trying to chip the old chrome off and also using various abrasive substances, I gave up and sold on the tailstock with the wheel in much the same state as when I got it. The edge bits were very sharp and I cut myself a couple of times but I'm still alive to tell the tale.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

My advice is to avoid powder coating like the plague! It is great until you manage to damage the coating through to the base material. If it is steel, then rusts creeps underneath the coating and spreads like wild fire. The amount of powder coatings I have had to strip and repaint properly,runs into many hours of work. It has now got to the stage where I will not buy items that are powder coated and that is an awful lot of stuff!

Andrew.

Poor prep work and/or crappy powder coaters.

Good quality powder coating is about as good as it gets for stuff like m/c frames or custom car chassis. Certainly tougher, and more corrosion resistent than stove enamel. Should be able to hit it with a hammer, spanner, ratchet and nothing happens. The bike in my avatar was powder coated about 16 years ago. Everything, and i mean EVERYTHING on that bike is powdercoat. Frame, s/arm, wheels, forks, mudguards, all tinware INC the tank!! Scratches, patina, bruises sure. But no coating has fallen off or even started to.

Back to the topic, no i would not recommend powder coating on a lathe hand wheel….

Just seen the photo, if that is a one piece handle with the graduated lines and numbers and does not come apart, the polishing and plating process will make a mess of those lines and numbers. Unavoidable.

In my case, it might have helped if the Triumph lads at Meriden hadn't stamped the frame number through the powder coating on my T140W/TSS.