I am working on a sissy bar using 304 stainless 1/2 inch square rod. I have the standard HD sissy bar mounts which appear to be 9/16. My intention is to polish the stainless and get close to a true chrome level of shine. In the event that does not work I will send it for chrome plating. How many thousandths is the plating and do I need to worry about exceeding the mount dimensions? Also any suggestions of a place in the 310 area code that does that thick old school plating would be greatly appreciated. Tommy

 

First 304 SS is soft not really a good material for a bitch bar unless it's say 3 " tall it will bend on you .

Second , it will polish up nicely but it will never have that bright sparkly look of chrome , SS is a darker base metal .

last you can chrome some grades of Stainless but again 304 isn't the best candidate it will peel in short order .

PS : thick isn't what you want in good chrome it's too brittle and any flex breaks the bond and it gonna peel . I was a maint. guy in a commercial plating plant for a couple of yrs , you kinda get to know this stuff .

Good luck bud

 

+ 1

This is either in your mind or some marketing hype you've heard. The quality of the appearance in a chrome (or any electroplating) finish is all in the polishing/preparation of the base metal. It’s like the finish on a car. You can have the best paint job in the world, but if the bodywork is crap, it’ll show through the paint. Only with electroplating, it’s even more dramatic because the plating is so thin.

 

I turned out that the 304 stainless is quite strong if you have enough of it and it polishes out to be even more shiny than chrome -- think stainless steel watch... And it can be cold bent by hand. Pictures attached.