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Talk about favorite or hated suppliers, recommend good materials or sources, or anything of the same ilk. This is also a good place to suggest unique ideas and innovations you may have come up with.
My Alberg 30 came with two cowl vents that looked ragged with peeling dirty white paint. Under the paint was some old dull metal, what I thought was cast aluminum.
Having priced some new bronze cowl vents, I decided to clean up what I have and just repaint. After sitting in a bag of citristrip for a week, the paint came right off, and sections of the underlying metal was exposed. What I found, was bronze! Looks like they are cast bronze, then chromed and painted white at sometime in their life, likely when the chrome started to look ratty. I've started sanding the chrome off, and the bronze looks good.
After looking, there's all sorts of chrome hardware that appears be bronze underneath.
I wish I could sand my plastic portholes enough to find bronze underneath.
Preserved, I think you will find that folks who are in the replating business are in the preparation-for-replating business, too. They will be able to strip your chrome plating. Sure would beat sanding chrome off; it's harder than the substrate.
Have you ever read Richard Feynman's books? He was once in the business of plating plastic (but as a young Turk back when it didn't work well)
Do you have bronze portlights? I'll trade you my plastic portlights, plus the bronze cowl vents for some nice bronze portlights.
It's been some work, but they are looking quite nice now. The larger vent sat in a bag of citristrip for a week or more, and that chrome came off easily. The smaller vent had much thicker chrome and I burned up a fair pile of emery cloth to remove it. I did look into de-plating but it was looking rather expensive. I also read that muriatic acid would remove the chrome but could also leech copper from the bronze discoloring it....which testing supported. So sanding I polishing it was. Good way to warm up in my shop.
No, but I sure wish I did. I've been thinking about replacing my aluminum framed deadlights with some nice bronze portlights. I just can't find anyone interested in trading for my plastic cowl vents.
BTW, I'm replacing my cowl vents this winter. And I'm verrry envious of what you've got going there.
