TAC Tech > Electrical

Trunk lamp refurbishment

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FormTA:
Ya, I have done some plating as well and it's tough to get a consistent outcome. But ya, nice original pieces to begin with really helps!

Wallington:
Yes, there's still a few mint or even new parts that come back, some have a nice sheen and an identical part is almost flat in sheen. That example even existed with the trunk lamp bodies. Annoyingly, I've sold a few of these over the years that were mint, other than the surface plating wasn't as good as my own original. Never thought to replate them at the time.

Here's 3 I had returned.
The far right was nice and bright with reflective sheen, it's what I used for my pics and for best components for eventual install in my car.

The middle part was same condition but has little reflection, more of a silver frosted appearance, still nice. It looks a little scruffy from different angles like cleaned with a wire brush harshly many years ago.

The first one was a part I was kinda duped on. A guy in the US I used to regularly get parts from and fill a box of trivial items to send over. I also asked if he had any lamps that were not rusty (suitable for plating). He said he sure did, sent a few pics and it looked nice and clean. What turned up was one that had previously been less than average condition, surface rust with pitting. Except....he'd bead blasted it and given an clear coat, which is why the blurry pics looked nice. Sometimes guys think they are helping and other times they are not. And also perhaps don't give the entire facts unless asked specifically. Worse still, it probably cost double since he factoring in his resto work! Anyway, it wasn't wasted, the internals were good and swapped with my existing spares and the worse parts swapped into this one. It still looks nice but is etched all over from the rust pitting and has no sheen.

firebird trunk lamp bodies replated by Ben, on Flickr

20240412_110027 by Ben, on Flickr

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