Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

[Ian G.]

I'm in Northern California and having trouble finding a Cadmium Plater willing to take my business. I guess it's rough with the environmental protections up here. I love lakes and streams and clean air but this is giving me a headache. There were three cadmium platers in NoCal (that I can find). One plater went out of business and the other quit doing cad. The other won't work with me (I guess he doesn't like auto projects). A fourth is up in Sacramento. But before I try my sob story on them, I wanted to see if anyone can recommend a plater that will let me ship my stuff, cad plate it and send back, without much fear that it will get lost... West of the Rockies would be ideal, but anywhere that will work with me is fine too...

[Joe L.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

I'm in Northern California and having trouble finding a Cadmium Plater willing to take my business. I guess it's rough with the environmental protections up here. I love lakes and streams and clean air but this is giving me a headache. There were three cadmium platers in NoCal (that I can find). One plater went out of business and the other quit doing cad. The other won't work with me (I guess he doesn't like auto projects). A fourth is up in Sacramento. But before I try my sob story on them, I wanted to see if anyone can recommend a plater that will let me ship my stuff, cad plate it and send back, without much fear that it will get lost... West of the Rockies would be ideal, but anywhere that will work with me is fine too...

Ian-----


Have you tried Electroplating Specialties (EPS) in Hayward? They used to do cad but I don't know if they still do. The market for cad plating is very diminished (mostly just mil-spec work and even that may be shifting to zinc by now) and there is significant difficulty in treating cad plating wastewater to current standards.

I recommend using zinc as a substitute. I don't think anyone can visually discern the difference between cad and zinc.

[Ian G.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Yeah EPS is no longer doing Cad... I had them do a big batch for me about 6 months ago. Now I need to do a smaller batch of extras and my FI stuff and they stopped doing it sadly.

[Chris S.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Steve Gregori does all my plating

http://www.brakeboosters.com/services.htm

He is in California

[John D.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Yeah EPS is no longer doing Cad... I had them do a big batch for me about 6 months ago. Now I need to do a smaller batch of extras and my FI stuff and they stopped doing it sadly.

Ian, I use Beringer Plating, Inc. They have a web site. 1211 DeValera Ave, Akron, OH 44310 330-733-8409. They do beautiful clear cadmium plating. And many other kinds of plasting except they don't do chrome.
They are not cheap. About 250-275 a batch. They have never lost a part for me and I get zillions of parts plated. I keep each job separate and so do they.
Ohio is loaded with cad platers. There is a cad plater near the Pittsburgh International Airport.
Paul Shuster uses them.
Mance Plating in Imperial.

[Jeff S.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Most of the surviving cad plating is done at shops on/about airport properties. Many aviation industry components rely/specify cadmium plated finishes, typically with post-plating baking cycles. Not exactly "... west of the Rockies ...", but these guys are good & do a lot of automotive parts, Colorado front range area. Located at Broomfield CO airport.

http://coloradoplating.com/

[David P.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Try the Corvette Stop - 530-677-4270 or corvettestop.com. They do all types of plating. No personal experience with them, but other members may have. I think they're in Northern California.

[Vinnie P.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Try Speed & Sport Chrome, they advertise in The Driveline, you would have to call to see if they offer the services you need. They are in Houston, TX

[Richard G.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Having gone through the "cad verses zinc" scenario several times it was a general consensus that in judging it would be difficult to tell the difference. Or even "prove it" if there was a difference in opinion in the appearance. I am assuming that you want Cad because it was specified that way, or prefer the subtle appearance differences. I understand on a FI car the injection parts may be exceptions to my general rule of thumb rule. I would have to balance the "letting the parts go out of my control" with my needs for cad. I would argue that zinc would work fine and is much easier to find platers because of the environmental concerns. Especially if I had someone local that could do zinc. I remember the Anxiety of having to send my parts through the mail. Good news was I had a 100% confidence in the plater getting me my parts back. It was the mailing that bothered me.
Rick

[Richard R.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

I used Steve Gregori with great success. Make sure you discuss the type of finish (shiny/satin/dull) you want with him before cleaning any parts. For example, bead blasted parts will make it difficult to end up with a very shiny surface. Ask me how I know....

Rich

[Paul K.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

http://www.corvettestop.com/

I just had a batch of zinc plating done for my 66, great people to work with and great zinc plating, they also do cad. They also restore many corvette items.

[Joe L.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Having gone through the "cad verses zinc" scenario several times it was a general consensus that in judging it would be difficult to tell the difference. Or even "prove it" if there was a difference in opinion in the appearance. I am assuming that you want Cad because it was specified that way, or prefer the subtle appearance differences. I understand on a FI car the injection parts may be exceptions to my general rule of thumb rule. I would have to balance the "letting the parts go out of my control" with my needs for cad. I would argue that zinc would work fine and is much easier to find platers because of the environmental concerns. Especially if I had someone local that could do zinc. I remember the Anxiety of having to send my parts through the mail. Good news was I had a 100% confidence in the plater getting me my parts back. It was the mailing that bothered me.
Rick

Rick------


Many people erroneously believe that if the "silver colored" finish is "dull", it's cadmium and if it's "shiny" it's zinc. That's not the case, at all. Either zinc or cadmium can appear "dull" or "shiny" depending upon preparation and plating process.

Once-upon-a-time, I took minute scrapings of a whole bunch of "silver colored", original Corvette components and analyzed them using atomic absorption spectroscopy. Every one was zinc; none were cadmium.

[Ian G.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Thanks everybody! I wasn't aware of CorvetteStop.

[Bob W.]

Re: Looking for cadmium Plater that accepts shipping

Joe I like others though if was shiny it had to be zinc and dull was cad. So you learn something new every day here.