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Surprise email from the chrome shop today, they shipped my chrome order "early" by a few months - almost unheard of? Arriving tomorrow. JIT 4 XMAS! I'll be waxing chrome by christmas lights in the garage...
Merry Christmas to all.

A wonderful Christmas present we can ALL relate to! Have a great Christmas Jim, and all the others in Packard Land!!
B

Who did you use and did they do a good job? I have a couple of small pieces I could use re-chromed and am looking for someplace that might be willing to take the job.

Merry Christmas!

I usually don't "endorse" product or services. I'm OK relating my experiences.
I'm a bit late looking back at posts.

I had some "pot metal" and steel trim parts to do that I exchanged/replaced with some used I acquired, while I'm working on my other car.
My usual source quit doing pot metal and trim, only does bumpers now. So that's one place, if you need bumpers done. His "competition" quoted me 56 weeks, ie; over a year to get them done. I've never used these guys, but talked to them at the Auto Fair.
I contacted the people I used before, Advanced Plating" and they were about half the wait. www.advancedplating.com
They were a bit high in price in my opinion, wouldn't budge off their estimate, but can do "show chrome" quality and specialty finsihes which is a bit more than my driver needs and they already had my parts, and it costs about $75+ to ship one way which I had to pay if they replated anyway. If I didn't already know their work, I'd not pursued. They did all the Packard chrome quite a few years back and it's looking well in storage. I had them black chrome the divider on the windshield to make it less noticeable. They beat their 22 week estimate by a few weeks, not as much as I first thought.
First, I'd search around the "bays" and such for used or rechromed parts, they might be cheaper than getting yours replated now. Eg:The purchased pot metal set was just under the cost to replate about a wash - no wait. I bought a set of 1" wide spears for around $300 that were perfect. They charged me $741 to do one now. But it's flawless and better than anything that came from the factory. So show chrome is not restoration in my opinion. Another show chrome place advertised on TV, I dealt with was even higher than Advanced.

I'm trying a place now in Eastern Washington called Restoration Plating on some delicate scripts for my 1956 Clipper Custom. Considering two of them were NOS but needing pins replaced although otherwise unpitted, they seem quite expensive but I'll know if it was worth it once I get the parts back.

For bumpers, I just used a place that is local (I already spent a bundle getting the bumper shipped to me so didn't want to ship it again) after searching and searching for a service that would do it. One in San Jose CA that I've used in the past, Faith Plating, has had some bad reviews and as I recall (it was decades ago) their quality was only so so and didn't last. The place I just used is called The Best Chrome (just a generic site with no information) but difficult to find by a search as they all think they are the best! This one is in San Martin, CA. At least one local Packard specialist restoration shop uses them and even picked up the bumper from me for the plating.

Thanks for the recommendations on shops. Something for me to keep in the back of my mind. Eventually I'll need to have my front bumper redone, and maybe some other parts. I haven't found a decent replacement front, otherwise I would just do that.

-Kevin

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. I have a very small job I’m hoping to get done - replating the original dealer tag for my ‘54 - so I’ll have to see if any will be willing. It’d be a cool original item to have attached as my car was purportedly the daily driver of the wife of the dealership owner. Although I have no way of positively verifying that.