Kawasaki Triples Club

Superb mate,
Hope my H2B turns out some thing like yours its a credit to you.

Who rechromed your pipes by the way they look ace

the pipes are repro i had the originals re-chromed but they didnt turn out very good £600 down the drain dont know any chromers that can do a decent job at a decent price looking thru previos posts finding a good chromer seems to be a major issue with restorers i looked at several cromers stalls at stafford show and none of them were what i would call a high standard bearing in mind what they charge . when i spoke to the chromer the issue seemed to be that any repairs done with braze have a tendancy to pit when chromed and the only solution was to copper plate first and then refinnsh considerably adding to the cost also the chrome didnt seem to take very well to any surfaces that difficult to prepare [mounting brackets] being new to this restoring lark i dont know if this is true or i was being fed bullshit for a crap job seems to me a good quality chromer could make a killing out of us resto boys if anyone can find one that will also do zorsts

I agree with you chroming around brackets always seems to turn out crap and if silencers are pitted then forget it the metal is to thin to polish out the pits. Silencers are the finishing touch but unfortunately the hardest to get looking right.

they can be done, there are some very good and capable chromers around, but you would need to approach one of the old lags on here who can do the prep work or get it done, usually when the silencers have pitting they can be silver soldered or patched to fix them but its time consuming. The platers should start with copper then polish it then Nickle plate then flash the chrome over the top, its the Nickle that gives the bright finish, but a little bit yellow, then the chrome over the top is hard and a bit bluish. Not supprised your chromer claimed difficulty getting a good finish if he didnt put a nice thick layer of Cu first....

Rubbadub wrote:, but you would need to approach one of the old lags on here

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Ahem . . . .
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old lag
Variant of lag


intransitive verb lagged, lagging

1.
a.to fall, move, or stay behind; loiter; linger
b.to move or develop more slowly than expected, desired, etc.; be retarded in motion, development, etc.
2.to become gradually less intense, strong, etc.; wane; flag
3.to toss a marble toward a line marked on the ground to determine the order of play
4.Billiards to strike the cue ball so that it rebounds from the far rail to stop as close as possible to the near rail or the string line: done to decide the order of play
noun

1.a falling behind or being retarded in motion, development, etc.
2.the amount of such falling behind; interval between two related events, processes, etc.: the lag of peak current behind peak voltage
3.a lagging, as in billiards and marbles
4.Now Rare one that lags, or is last

I know what he means, must be a brummy thing

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dict ... sh/old-lag

sweet angel wrote:I know what he means, must be a brummy thing

. Yeah, I knew exactly what he means, but I hadn't heard that term in a while . . . I was just concerned at :
.

1.a falling behind or being retarded in motion, development, etc.

Chroming. I think the key phrase on this was " being new to this....."

I do believe people have unrealistic expectations on rechromed exhaust pipes.
Couple of points ;
1.) OEM Chrome was crap to begin with.

"2) Show bike over restoration gives other folk very unrealistic expectations as to what is achieveable. ( How many sets of pipes have top restorers rejected before finally getting a " decent " set to start with ? )

3. ) Even when the chrome etc is applied well, the crucial part of the process is the preparation. If you get the internals cleaned out yourself, get the bracket areas blasted clean , and oversea the whole polishing process, you`ll understand it more . And maybe get a better final product. ( I suspect a lot of people just drop off the pipes and wait for a perfect job ? )

And even then....the pipe metal is pretty thin to begin with. With the polishing , you tend to find the shiny chrome emphasises , as you can quite often see witness marks where the Baffle plates are , and "bowing of the sidewall between the paltes. Unavoidable really. But I`ve heard some Folk moan about that.

This isn`t a dig at anybody. Just pointing out some facts that some of you may not be aware of. ( If you get one set done every odd year, as oppossed to us lot who are getting 4 or sets a month done )
I really do think a lot of Chromers get an unfair hearing !!

Now Painters on the other hand.....Muddy Hell