Chrome Plating??

I am looking for a place to send M*G parts to be stripped and chrome plated. I am working on several different old mag lites I have had for a while doing an nFlex led mod with a Lux5, and a M*G85 in and old D cell. Both host have a lot of nicks and scratches from normal use and it sure would be nice to have them refinished.

Any suggestions on refinishing and especially chrome plating would be appreciated.

It's going to be expensive! For a single piece, Fivemega was quoted $35. That did not include stripping and polishing, either! (the item must be highly polished before being chromed) I don't think the place where he had his bodies chrome did the stripping and polishing, but I'm sure some places will do everything. I would suggest you look in the yellow pages under 'Plating' and ask if they do chroming. Then tell them what you want done and ask how much it'll be. Call several to get the best price. Be sure to ask if they strip and polish, also. Stripping and polishing, however, can both be done by you (to save money).

I just got a quote for $25 to $50 per piece. I emailed back and asked if that was per light which included four pieces and said $25 or so would be more like it. My initial inquiry was answered within minutes, my second has gone unanswered for two hours which might tell me they are not interested.

Well here is the end of that bright idea. The reply came in....

"Unfortunately, I am very doubtful that the four pieces can be done for $25. Since all of the parts are anodized, we will have to remove the anodizing then polish the parts, copper plate them, polish the copper and then nickel and chrome plate them. If the pieces where in raw aluminum and we where simply plating them as is, the cost might be affordable. However, as you explained it, you will be spending probably $100-$150 per light. Cost prohibitive, I am sure.
Best regards,"
XXX

I wonder what they mean by raw aluminum? Stripping isn't very expensive and can be done all together. As Fivemega has told me, the expensive part is the polishing. Stripping and polishing can be done yourself, but I'm not sure how polished they need to be for them to look like a mirror after chroming.

Again, I wonder what they mean exactly by "raw" aluminum? If you strip and polish the metal, will that be raw enough for them? There are instructions on CPF about how to strip anodizing. Polishing can be done with Never-Dull, or other type of polish.

I thought that chroming was bad for heat transfer? anyone??? That is what I was told by some academic guy...

ktronik, your academia guy is correct!

Chromium (91.3 W/m·K) have much worst heat transfer properties when compared to Aluminum (237 W/m·K) or Copper (410 W/m·K).

But it's still better than air
As long as you hold your light. It'll be alright.

I don't know about others but most of my chrome lights are shelf queens, not because of thermal properties. It's more because they are no pretty to look at I want to preserve them for the next generation.

He told me that, after telling him, I wanted to do croming on my NOc finned m@g so thanks for clearing that up for me...

I've done loads of chrome plating on aluminum and didn't like long term results. chrome is flashed on last in an extremely thin layer over copper and nickel.

electroless nickel bonds best on aluminum and is a pretty reliable finish.

it's hard to beat hard anodizing for aluminum.

stock finish on maglites should plate nicely. polishing is done by hand and pretty pricey.

I had a minimag done for 50.00 iT LOOKS AWSOME