Thumper Club Forum

Technical => Recommended Services => Topic started by: iansoady on November 16, 2015, 11:06:23 AM

Title: Chrome plating in Brum
Post by: iansoady on November 16, 2015, 11:06:23 AM
I had some of my Sunbeam parts plated recently.

Before:

(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e398/iansoady/bike/Sunbeam/sunbeam%20small_zpshzunvyws.jpg)
(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e398/iansoady/bike/Sunbeam/sunbeam%206_zpsxnshljlh.jpg)

After:

(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e398/iansoady/bike/Sunbeam/chrome/IMG_2515_zpsln0tsowa.jpg)
(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e398/iansoady/bike/Sunbeam/chrome/IMG_2517_zpsoi9hmrbn.jpg)

At £270 for the lot an excellent job IMO. It's an old-school plating shop in the back streets of Balsall Heath: http://www.chromefix.co.uk/ - ask for Rob.
Title: Re: Chrome plating in Brum
Post by: timbo on November 16, 2015, 12:09:52 PM
Good job for sure, and a gorgeous Sunbeam. What is the story of the bike, year, model, history etc?
Title: Re: Chrome plating in Brum
Post by: manxie on November 16, 2015, 12:34:51 PM
Excellent, looks a good job. What was the time scale before you received your items back? PS. Love the Sunbeam  :)
Title: Re: Chrome plating in Brum
Post by: iansoady on November 16, 2015, 04:22:22 PM
The Sunbeam is a recent acquisition - my first pre-war bike, first with hand change although I've had old Brits of various types for 40-odd years. I had it from Andy Tiernan in Suffolk as a part-ex with a Triumph 500 unit twin. It's a 1931 Model 10 350, which was supposed to be a cheap bike for the depression era but apparently wasn't popular so was only made for 2 years - which means spares aren't exactly readily available so the lathe is coming into operation quite a lot.

It amazes me that Sunbeam, which were struggling financially at the time, must have sunk a huge amount into tooling and design. After the Model 10's demise, it was replaced by a resuscitated pre-1930 Model 8 350. I bought the bike sight unseen on the basis of a report from Tiernan but have to say it's not quite as good as described - for example the clutch was slipping so badly it could never have started but was reported as running well...... There's a lot of work still to do but I should be on course for getting it on the road in Spring.

The chroming was very quickly turned round - around 3 weeks or so from taking the bits in to collecting them. It was a bit like going back 50 years - huge steaming vats of noxious looking chemicals and a horrible smell, but turning out very nice work.