Plastic ?? Re-Chromed?? Dash? My 63' has metal and its panted.. Are you talking accent pieces? If that is what your talking about. I was looking at for currosity sake.. At the Gold Plated Apple Ipad's and phones that Computer Choppers does.. Its expensive..
A while back I found a place called Chrome Tech USA Now I haven't tried them, but they have examples of 65-65 falcon dash trim (not sure if these are what you are referring too) that they've refinished and it looks like showroom quality. I would defiantly check into them and if you do let us know what there prices are. Hope this helps
I bought a new radio plate to cut up for my Retrosound radio and sent that as well----so 5 pieces.
Sometime in the 70-80 timeframe, someone attempted a little creativness on the dash (probably my aunt or cousin), And filled the center section
with a walnut paterned contact paper. It has held up for a good many years but it is time for it to come off.
The chrome guy will be cleaning this stuff off and repairing one of the mounting holes in the instrument cluster (and I even found the broken
piece).
Not looking for an absolute show quality job on this, just a nice driver quality.
I used Dearborn Classics for mine. I believe they send it to a place in Canada that does the actual work. It took several weeks, maybe two months even I don't recall. It was probably ten years ago but I seem to recall it was around $350-400 or so back then. That included all four pieces in my car since it's a Futura. You can see it in my Garage photos here but they're not great. It looks better than new in person and worth every cent!
They wouldn't accept broken or cracked parts and told me to make sure they were packed like rare artifacts and insured! They strip them down to bare plastic, re-chrome them and then paint and airbrush them back to factory new looking parts. One of my pieces came back flawed and they made sure they did as quick a turn-around as they could (a few weeks I think) and my part came back looking like the rest! To this day they still look like new.
I'd use them again!
John
PS: While I had it apart I replaced all the bulbs (you should too if you haven't) and removed the little blue light covers. These are the things that make the dash glow green. Removing them makes the dash light up white so the instruments now look like the tack and other aftermarket gauges that are black with white lettering. It looks much clearer and more modern too!
Should be coming back to me soon.
I called him about a week ago.
The plating was done, and he was planning on spending the next 2
weeks doing the painting.
Must have done a pretty good size run of plating to be backlogged with
the painting portion of it.
Hope to get them back very soon-----will be painting the dash this weekend so I can start putting it back together and install the wiring harness----looking forward to starting the car.
Oh---bought some acrylic enamel semi-gloss for the dash
Had it mixed to match the original paint.
(what is wrong with paint stores now---cant seem to match anything)
A shade too dark, but I was more concerned about the actual finish than I
was about the color. Painted the A-pillar and B-pillar covers and was more than satisfied with the finish. Nice smooth finish with very little gloss.
Back to paint store issues in general
These guys must be color blind--or they just don't care.
Can't see any store making a profit if they have to re-mix paint several times before getting it close.
Even using factory paint codes I have seen the colors so far off---no point in even trying to blend.
When I wrecked my BRAND NEW Ranger in '05, the paint that was sent to the shop turned out to be orange----my truck is RED---
Had to take the fuel fill cover to match a common paint code
Still have troubles with the fact that the stores cannot duplicate finishes from the 60s----they all have paint codes, colors, & finishes that correspond to a number & manufacturer----WHY CANT THESE NUMBERS BE CROSSED TO CURRENT AVAILABLE PAINTS?? even within the same manufacturer---weird and uncalled for in our new digital world.
They should be able to punch in a number and get a new current number
without all the fuss.
Here are a couple of pics of the pieces in the car before
I took them out.
Pretty ugly----that woodgrained peel&stick shelf contact paper
probably looked okay in the 80s---but no longer
This is the best I can do for the "BEFORE" pics---I cannot find the pics I took right before shipping them off.
I am more than happy with them---and the price.
The extra radio cover has been modified for a
different stereo----will not be cutting the dash at all.
But will have to make a couple of modifications to
a radio bezel.
WOW those look Great!! Good thing you painted the dash....or they would've looked too nice for the dash. Post up some photos once you have them installed.
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