Hidebinder---Guys are building new cars and they want a column shifter because they don't want to use up the floor space. Try advertising a trade. I think it would be a really tough job to rework the shroud and rechrome it. I have seen posts where people did it succesfully to older G.M. columns, but they basically ground the pot metal off with a grinding disc, plugged the hole with bondo, then primed and repainted.
I tried to do it by disassembling a G.M. column, and ended up with such a mess I had to throw the column away and then buy one without a shifter from Ididit.