Cutting out the middle man.

[weldwise]

hi have you seen the pic. the botch attempt to fix it the thinness of the steel.in my book cut it out and replace if your going to get any decent chroming results.as ive done this on a 1935 riley..but the art is not in the welding but how the finishing prep is done..if i would want a nice finish to chrome i would take it to my custom polishers who would give me a almost flawless finish....but then thats how i do it. and evrybody has there own ways....thanks

 

[Seattle Smitty]

I know I could do better myself if I had some kit and a bit of knowledge

Don't be too sure of that.

I enlarged the pix and still can't see what's going on. Anyway, my suggestion is that you take any pieces like this to the plater and have him reverse the current to remove the old plating (if you haven't done so). Then get the pieces acid-dipped or grit-blasted. See if anyone can tell you what alloy of steel was used to make the parts, which is what a welder needs if he is going to cut out and replace bad sections. Then, if you haven't yet found a good professional welder, take the parts to your local tech-school and ask the welding instructor if he has an advanced student who can do the job.

Brazing, or soldering, old metal isn't always easy. Watch a good radiator man at work on an old leaky core. He will treat the area around the leak with acid flux and then tin it with solder, but usually he will go through a long repetitive process of re-tinning and cleaning, over and over until he is satisfied with the adhesion of the tinning layer, at which point he can quickly finish soldering up the joint. The same sort of effort is often used with brazing jobs, which likewise depend on a sound job of tinning. And for that matter, the plater may have to try more than once to get a proper initial plating of copper on your parts before applying a good copper/nickel/chrome buildup.