Restoring chrome plated hand wheels.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

I've seen motorbike exhuasts that have been sprayed with a ceramic coating that looks just like chrome. Might be an option for handwheels?.

[Shaun BelcherParticipant @shaunbelcher81617]

I know this is an old thread but im in the process of restoring my myford.

Can anyone confirm that these wheels are actually indeed chrome plated?

I suspect they may be nickel plated which if this is the case is easy to do at home.

If you take a good look at these handles, especially the one on the saddle, its still quite rough from the casting on the spokes. I dont think chrome would take very well to this, but the plating seems to be very thin and wears off with use, something that would not happen from hands very easily, the casting is painted, and no signs of plating on that part. I suspect they are just nickel or speculum plated.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

These leadscrew handles come up frequently new on ebay and considering the cost of refinishing yours would be an option.

[Shaun BelcherParticipant @shaunbelcher81617]

Its not that expensive to get stuff rechromed here if I want, I bought a used handle off ebay and by the time I pay for shipping to New Zealand, it cost me about the same as rechroming it anyway. Its cheaper if i send in a bunch of small parts to get plated in one go, but as far as originality goes, I suspect they are nickel plated anyway, which is super easy to do at home, just was wanting to check with others here.

Edited By Shaun Belcher on 25/05/2020 00:13:18

[Brian OldfordParticipant @brianoldford70365]

Posted by Andrew Tinsley on 14/07/2017 14:20:38:

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.

Andrew

You might like to know the crestings at Kidderminster SVR station were installed well over 20 years ago. These are cast aluminium and were powder coated before installation.

Other than the toning down of the original garish high gloss finish there's no visible sign of deterioration despite being exposed to the elements for all this time.

I do agree, great care was taken to avoid any damage to the coating during during installation.

The design was closely based upon those crestings that were created at MacFarlane's Saracen works in Glasgow.

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