Thread: Stainles trim

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what about cutting a peice of pure polished stainless down and welding it back up? I could get a door trim peice for a 2dr reproduction, which is a longer peice. 4dr peices are hard to find in good shape and not available reproduction. I could get the fender spears off Ebay for $20-50 a pair

I suppose the worst case is trying to "fill" a pit or dent, but cutting followed by polishing should work if it is indeed stainless through and through (stainless is steel with chromium in it as an alloy). I can understand why a 1940 Ford might have solid stainless trim before WWII but bumpers and trim certainly suffered from louzy plating due to a Cr shortage during the Korean conflict. Considering Chevy was the low end of the product line, I would wonder if it had solid stainless as compared to plated steel. However if you think you can cut, grind and polish the piece to look good and it turns out to be plated you can still get it replated, but if you cut into a plated piece it will probably flake along the cut. I think the answer to your question is that you can do it provided you can make the piece look good after the cut and then replate it if need be. The issue is to make a smooth modification. Any imperfections should be filled/fixed with Cu plating rather than Pb since Pb is too soft for this application.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

I suppose the worst case is trying to "fill" a pit or dent, but cutting followed by polishing should work if it is indeed stainless through and through (stainless is steel with chromium in it as an alloy). I can understand why a 1940 Ford might have solid stainless trim before WWII but bumpers and trim certainly suffered from louzy plating due to a Cr shortage during the Korean conflict. Considering Chevy was the low end of the product line, I would wonder if it had solid stainless as compared to plated steel. However if you think you can cut, grind and polish the piece to look good and it turns out to be plated you can still get it replated, but if you cut into a plated piece it will probably flake along the cut. I think the answer to your question is that you can do it provided you can make the piece look good after the cut and then replate it if need be. The issue is to make a smooth modification. Any imperfections should be filled/fixed with Cu plating rather than Pb since Pb is too soft for this application.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

there pure stainless to my knowladge, rust stuck to some of my trim from the car body but it scratches right off, they polish up with regular polishing compounds.

Well it could still be a good and heavy chrome plate job but as I said if so you can get it replated if indeed is is not stainless throughout the piece. I recently messed with repro 1929 inside door handles on my roadster and actually bought door handles from three different sources and none of them would fit on the chrome looking square shaft on the outside door handle that comes through the door. Finally I got a set of small files and started to file down the shaft and on one side I filed a lot off and it was still chrome but on the other side I filed just a tiny bit too much and a small piece of plate flaked off revealing steel underneath so maybe in some cases the chrome plating is really good and thick on your pieces. Still if you saw or cut them in some manner you will find out if they are plated. Fortunately the plate chip that flaked off my door shaft is not visible and all I had to do is give it a tiny spray of paint for rust protection and tighten the set screw a little more and nobody but us knows the difference. If you make a cut and the plate flakes off along the edge it will probably be possible to buff polish the edge using the direction of the brush head away from the edge and blend in the thin chrome edge and then have it replated. We should mention one other option, If the chrome is not salvagable or available you can just say you saw too many pictures of Barris Customs and "dechromed" the car by filling in all the mounting holes. Back in the mid-50s that was the style. Dechrome, fill and paint smooth. I am attaching another Chevy (it might be an Oldsmobile which had a similar body, but he was moving at the time and I was lucky to get this quick picture without time to look at the sticker on the windshield) which I think was/is a '52 which has modified the chrome a lot along with frenched headlights and a newer V8. I also saw a neat '39 Ford convertible at the same meet with reversed door hinges and the owner/builder painted the whole car the same aqua-green over everything, bumpers, grill and remaining trim pieces and it looked good so another option is to just smooth the trim and paint it the same color as the body.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Matt, I think this does need a bit more chrome and the '39 grill ('40 Standard) is one of the prettiest when chromed but maybe in the scheme of things this owner will graduallyadd some chrome later. However you can see that all the hood and body chrome has been eliminated and it looks good to me. How about those reversed door hinges! But then again I did look at a lot of pictures of Barris Customs so "dechromed" looks good to me but now I have stainless bumpers on my '29 and that looks good too. I think it just comes down to the situation that if you have the chrome and you want it then do so but if you don't then dechrome it smooth or paint over the faulty chrome.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder