Z1OwnersClub GB

anyone used this paint (clicky)?

if so, what is it like?

(is it worht using this repaint indicator stalks or buying new ones - where from, how £££).

Never used that brand but the chrome paint I've seen in the past just looks like silver / grey paint. I doubt if it will give you a chrome finish.

Yes, its silver paint.

There are no easy ways to get things look good.

interesting ....... I know that in t he frost's catalogue they sell a chrome paint that is meant to be about 80% reflective and can be used to paint the lamp reflectors.... (not sure if it is the can picture though).

then ther is this stuff...

<--- clicky

Sprayed on chrome finish is an illusion! The freshly sprayed finish might look somewhere close to poorly prepared Chrome plate, but unless you then lacquer that finish, it will quickly deteriorate into a silver grey.
OEM stems are available from most Zed suppliers and they're not expensive.

Or you could track down some of that chrome tape that came on a roll and we all used to wrap around our bicycle frames back in the 70s

Pasc wrote:Or you could track down some of that chrome tape that came on a roll and we all used to wrap around our bicycle frames back in the 70s

That stuff was EXCELLENT!! Sure you can still get it in Woolies at Christmas time.

Then there's always cooking foil..... or solder even....

Diffraction Tape! anyone remember that?

Been in the polishing and plating trade best part of 30 years ( god i feel old)
and paint is paint, and chrome plating is chrome plating, if it was that easy to achieve a plated finish with paint every plating company, believe me, would be installing spray booths instead of plating plants.

Took your time answering that one Mikey....
But now EVERYONE has had the definative answer from the horses mouth

mikey wrote: if it was that easy to achieve a plated finish with paint every plating company, believe me, would be installing spray booths instead of plating plants.

Some of the chrome I've had back from pro platers looks like it's been sprayed on in a booth.
ps I'm sure from what I've heard from other members this does not include Mikeys standard of work.

I know pasc ive put some right for some people, thats why were i work they dont take on bike and car stuff cuz we are realy commercial platers, and thats what usually happens a commercial plater takes on resto work and just do it to the same standard, but in saying that if its prepared properly as in stripping and polishing no reason why a commercial plater cant achieve a satisfactory finish, plating is very much like spraying its all in the preperation, but there are limitations on some items, like on a Z the fuel cap, indicators and indicator stems are made of zinc die-cast which is notorious for corroding under the plating, and when you strip it you find all sorts of horrors, which sometimes can be covered with a heavy copper deposit and then polish the copper plate,
even then sometimes that has limitations, when we re plated the indicators on my Z we tried a difrent method which if i paid for it would have been very exspensive, though they look lot better than they did, im sure the average customer could find fault with them, and in some cases you can buy new parts cheaper than the cost of replating, worth checking guys before you commit to replating stuff.

Mikey, I know what you mean about prep. My pal is a polisher. He used to prep bike stuff for customers before he took it to the platers. He took great care in his prep but more often than not once it got to the platers it would not get treated with the same care and would come back chromed but with knocks and scratches that weren't there after polishing. He does not take on chroming jobs now for this reason.
The other side of the coin is that there are good platers around, you just have to be lucky enough to find them. I used to use a small family company in Brum called Cresswells. Brilliant stuff and guaranteed.

Pasc thats why i dont take on chrome work had same trouble as your mate, ive heard that name cresswells in the trade.