I have heard some horrific stories about the costs of re-plating bumper bars and I have seen receipts for over $1000 for a re-plate of a MK 2 front bumper bar. Being faced with the possible cost of replating the MK 1 bumper bar previously mentioned in this column I decided to checkout the local plating people at Pine Rivers Electroplating at unit 3/23 Paisley Drive in Lawnton.

I spoke to Mark who by sheer luck had a Jaguar S type front bumper bar in the workshop. He advised that the cost to replate that bar was $320 plus GST. He also said that they would quote for any bumper bar and prices would vary depending on the amount of work required to do the job. He said their company insisted on doing it the “old way” i.e. plenty of copper plating under the chrome. Failure to do this by other plating shops has led to premature rusting and corrosion of plated finishes.

One very interesting piece of news is that they have now have the process to treat die cast corrosion and are willing to carry out this specialised plating operation. They are also involved in plating in gold, silver, bronze nickel and zinc and are also capable of re- plating early silver reflectors in headlight units.

Overall I was impressed with the way this company presented itself and the prices quoted were within my expectations. I shall certainly be giving them a try in the future.