Completed ST70 Upgrade

[s2kov]

Before:




After:










Tubes and Parts used:

4 x Sylvania Fat Bottle 6CA7
2 x RCA Black Plate 7199
1 x Mullard GZ34
MCAP Supreme & Auricap Signal Caps
ELNA Cerafine & Panasonic Filter Caps
Silver wire & Audience Hook-up wire used
MCap Bypass cap
5-Way Spkr Binding Post
Gold Plated RCA Socket

[Shannon Parks]

Is that a new chassis or how did you manage to polish it so well? Looks great!

[s2kov]

Hi Shannon,

chassis was re-chromed! :)

Is that a new chassis or how did you manage to polish it so well? Looks great!

[s2kov]

sounds and looks are totally different now! Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_11

[SDS-PAGE]

How do you re-chrome chassis like this? Can it be DIY'ed? Thanks!

[Uncle Ned]

How do you re-chrome chassis like this? Can it be DIY'ed? Thanks!

Well, I don't know if you can call it "re-chromed", since the original was nickel plated, not chromed!

If the original nickel is in decent shape it'd probably be possible just to buff it out real well and chrome over it. There are DIY chrome plating kits, but I think you'd probably want to try practicing on some smaller parts before trying to plate a whole chassis. Also, doing the plating itself isn't a lot of work, polishing is the fun part...

[SDS-PAGE]

I just realized that chroming will involve Molar scale of hexavalent chromium! Chromium can readily leach through the ground and be visible in 1 ppm!
I have to put up with EPA as it is everyday in my lab and I don't think I will mess with that stuff. The MSDS for it is big enough to fill the library of congress.
If I just wanted to de-rust my old chassis and polish it up bright, what would you recommend? I was thinking about using CLR or phosphoric acid to de-rust. What do you use to buff the surface w/o scratching? Also, as an alternative, there is chrome-like spray paint. Will this cut it?
I would probably end up buying iron covers from you soon, Ned. Thanks!

[Uncle Ned]

What do you use to buff the surface w/o scratching? Also, as an alternative, there is chrome-like spray paint. Will this cut it?
I would probably end up buying iron covers from you soon, Ned. Thanks!

Well... when I was learning how much I hated buffing and polishing, I found that decently stocked hardware stores had buffing wheels and compound. If your chassis is rough you may need multiple passes with progressively finer compound. You can stack buffing wheels to speed up the process.

Just to give you an idea of what it takes to make buffing easy, right now I'm watching Rachael Ray visit a guitar factory, and she's watching an employee buff out the finish on a guitar. The buffing wheel is a foot wide and the diameter of an extra large pizza, and the whole gizmo would fill most of a pickup truck bed.

Chrome spray paint ??? That's stuff that cheap farmers use to cover stains on their H model Farmalls, yuk. There's some interesting solutions in the realm of powder coating (there's chrome, wrinkle and hammertone), and that's something you can do at home without worrying about toxic waste products, heck, you can even recycle the overspray.

[EWBrown]

"Chrome" spray paint is basically a drab, bland silvery-gray looking finish, which never looks right anywhere...

If you have access to an electroplating shop, or there is a motorcycle or hot-rod shop in your area, they can get parts chromed or otherwise electroplated, if they can do fenders, frames and handlenbars, they can also do chassis. The price won't be cheap, unless you can "piggyback" onto someone else's work order. A true chrome plating job involves cleaning, acid-dipping, copper, nickel and then chrome plating as the last step.
(I may have the copper and nickel plating steps reversed)

I looked into this a couple years ago, at a local H-D motorcycle shop, the price guesstimate was around $150. :o Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_21

/ed B in NH

[wiredbecker]

My local hot rod shop will supposedly do powder coating for cheap. The only drag is that you're stuck with whatever color they happen to be using that day!

[Uncle Ned]

I looked into this a couple years ago, at a local H-D motorcycle shop, the price guesstimate was around $150. /ed B in NH

That sounds about right. This is from the web page of a local Harley parts plater:

Metal - Chrome Plating Process

* Remove the old coating, (old plating layers, paint, anodized surface, clear coat), using reverse plating, paint
striper.
* Polish the piece
* Soap cleaning @140 degree temperature
* Strike of nickel
* Plate with copper
* Polish the copper to a bright shinny copper
* Add layers of semi-bright and bright nickel
* Add hexavalent chrome for an eye catching shine
* Buff and clean parts
* Inspect parts

They get $180 from dealers for chroming a Sportster swingarm.

[SDS-PAGE]

$150, eh? Might as well order a new chassis! I think I will go with the polishing/buffing route. I just bought my ST-70 on eBay a couple of days ago, so I don't even know how good/bad the chassis actually is. It looked rust free on pictures though. If it's not too rusty, I think I will first try Fast Orange to get rid of years of keratin as well as other proteinaceous deposits, then perhaps try Blue Magic Metal Polish. Will keep you guys posted. Thanks for your info. on chrome! -Min

[TerrySmith]

Dynakitparts.com has a stainless chassis for $120. You could polish a mirror finish on that!

[EWBrown]

THe $150 bucks kinda changed my mind real quick... If I was doing up a suer-deluxe show piece, maybe, but for my own use, buffing off the rust zits and pits, and a rattlecan spraybomb finish are more than good enough for me Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_07 Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_05 Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_06 Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_02

Powder coating is a good option, that stuff is TOUGH!!! and looks good.

/ed B in NH

[Slartibartfast]

Powder coating is a good option, that stuff is TOUGH!!! and looks good.

/ed B in NH

A nice flat black poder coat finish on the chasis would look nice... Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_12