Chrome plating a supercharger

mcate

Registered User
There's a local plating place here in Norfolk that claims they have experience disassembling, prepping, & plating superchargers. They have an excellent reputation in the area, & are known to be the best plating place around, although a bit pricy. They said they'd plate my blower for approx $250. I was wondering if anyone has experience with anyplace doing this, & whether I should trust them.

Thanx,
Mike
 
"They have an excellent reputation in the area, & are known to be the best plating place around,"

Don't mean to sound harsh, I really mean that, but am I missin' sumthin'? Sounds like a no-brainer, 250 is an excellent price. I'd be on that deal like stink on a Chevy.

Lookin' forward to pics when you get it done, should look awesome!

'bird
 
Well, they DO have an excellent reputation. But I don't know if that necessarily translates to blowers! I've heard that blower housings are pretty temperature sensitive, & care needs to be taken not to get them too hot. Maybe I'm just paranoid.
 
Technically, aluminum changes structure at around 410 degrees but doesn't melt until over 1100. I really don't feel that chrome baths can develope enough heat to harm a blower in any form or fashion. What are they, 200-250 degress at most? I'm sure someone will chime in with more info.

You gonna do the rotor bearing plate also?

'bird
 
Thanx! Actually, I've had it for a while. Just recently figured out how to put the link on here!
 
Hey Rick, Santa brought me a set of underdrive pulleys the other day. 1st good weather Saturday we get lets put 'em on, ok?
 
sounds good to me..doesn't take long at all.....bring it on over or do u want to use your place?
 
Wouldn't the chrome effect the rotor clearances and other tight tolerances on the inside of the case?
 
I didn't come right out & ask them, but I'm assuming they'd make sure to only plate the outside of the blower. I'll definitely ask before I take it in to them!
 
With all the issues involved in getting it chromed, you may want to just consider having it polished.

CMS2IN.jpg


Everything in the picture is chromed except the blower.

The polished aluminum is only a slightly different color than plated. It does take some work to keep it clean, but a coating of Zoops should take care of that.

If you plate, you definitely want to keep the plating out of all the interior surfaces. This could lead to the plating peeling at some future date around where all of the interior edges meet the exterior. This would be especially true of the bearing plate.

They worry about the heat of polishing distorting the case and other components, not any heat associated with the plating process. Someone that does not know what they are doing can easily spot heat up a case very unevenly and lead to a warped part. I had a brand new “S” model polished. Magnuson would not warranty the blower until they inspected and reassembled the blower. They would not even send me the bearing plate to be polished. I had to mask off the polished parts of the blower and polish that part by hand once they had reassembled the blower.
 
Thanx George. I've had the above picture as my computer's wallpaper for some time now. I knew yours was polished, & I recall talking to you a ways back about polishing vs plating, but I'd forgotten your reasons. Charles at Magnum Powers says he can polish it for $350 while I'm getting the magnaporting done this winter. I may just go that route instead.

BTW, what is Zoops?
 
chroming?

where bouts is this place? i've been trying to find a place to plate my blower up here, but no one wants to take the job, and they say it will come out like **** and i should polish it, but me want chrome haha, any help would be great, thanks guys
 
The place is called Royal Plating & Silver in Norfolk, Va. (757) 855-6004. It had been almost a year since I'd spoken to them, so I called them this past week. Apparently my memory was off just a "tad" on the price of $250. They said it'd be a bit more, but they'd need be to bring the blower in to know exactly how much. Also, I'd need to completely disassemble it myself before I took it in. Oh, & they said they wouldn't get any plating on the inside of the blower.
I'm probably just going to take George's advice & just polish mine, but I'd love to see one plated. Let me know if you deal with them. I was in there one day last year & saw a guy picking up a BUNCH of plated '57 Chevy parts, & they looked excellent. I tried to look over the shoulder of the customer to see how much he was writing the check for, but couldn't see!
 
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