Best Metal to Chrome or Nickel Plate?

[verhoevenc]

As you can see from this picture, I have a 'Jag style' guitar I'm working on. Although the plastic part of the pick guard assembly is done, I do still have to make those two distinctive metal sections that the controls actually attach to on Jaguars. Since these are custom to match my shape I'll have to make them myself and send them out for plating. Has anyone done this before with pickup parts? What would be my metal of choice to match the fender hardware off of Jaguars? Not sure if this matters but the pick guard plastic is .090" which I would like to match in the metal.
Chris

[jason lollar]

I do that alot, I have the claws for the jag pickups made- those have to be steel, I get them cut to a cad file, bent polished and plated,
as far as the control plates youll probably want them laser or water cut- talk to the machine shop thats going to do it and see what they reccomend for easy cutting then talk to your plater and see what they recommend. All I have used is steel, nickel silver and brass.

[jonson]

Same direction as you Jason though mine is all laser cut no water. Nickel I sometimes just polish as it yellows and ages quicker than plate and have used bright nickel allthough thats a bit brittle and can flake off. The best I have found for chrome plating if you can handle the softer bit is copper sheet. Easy to polish myself so that's one cost gone and no pre copper plating another cost gone and a really good finish if the polishing is done right.

[Peter Naglitsch]

You can do nickel plating yourself. There are DIY plating kits available, at least here in Europe. As Jonson suggests, using pretty thick copper sheet and you should be able to polish it yourself and then simply nickel plate it at home. Copper is also easy to cut/file to shape.

[David Schwab]

As you can see from this picture, I have a 'Jag style' guitar I'm working on. Although the plastic part of the pick guard assembly is done, I do still have to make those two distinctive metal sections that the controls actually attach to on Jaguars. Since these are custom to match my shape I'll have to make them myself and send them out for plating. Has anyone done this before with pickup parts? What would be my metal of choice to match the fender hardware off of Jaguars? Not sure if this matters but the pick guard plastic is .090" which I would like to match in the metal.
Chris

I don't see a photo.

You really want to do all that for control plates?

Guitar Parts Resource* ::* Jaguar Control Plates

[Peter Naglitsch]

Chris usually does things a bit different from us others (and usually he does his stuff very well) so I'm guessing he has a specific design in mind. Traditional hardware will probably not fit

[David Schwab]

Chris usually does things a bit different from us others (and usually he does his stuff very well) so I'm guessing he has a specific design in mind. Traditional hardware will probably not fit

Right, he said he was building a Jaguar, but now looking at the other thread it isn't a Jaguar at all. Just has Jag pickups. But that was not made clear in this thread.

Control plates are often steel or brass.

[verhoevenc]

Shazam! There's the answer I was lookin' for. Brass. Steel's out for me, but brass I can do!
Gracias,
Chris

[Bruce Johnson]

For plates like that, I think you'll find that 0.090" brass will be kind of heavy. Also, brass isn't cheap. When I make up chrome plated pickguards and control plates, I like to make them out of 0.063" 6061 aluminum. It's easy to cut and file to shape, and it polishes up nicely. Softer aluminums like 5052 and 3000-series are harder to polish. The hardest part of the job is getting the top surface prepped for plating. You have to level-sand it to about 1500 grit, and buff it out to remove all the scratches, similar to how you finish out a high gloss paint job. The top surface has to be perfect, or the plating will show the defects. I did a couple of custom chrome pickguards for a client a few months ago, and I can tell you that the majority of the labor was in the polishing.

[verhoevenc]

Yeah. I went and looked at brass stock and it was $88 for a square foot! I'll have to take a look at the aluminum. Also, on these guits, are the pickguards not the same thickness as the metal parts? That's why I was leaning towards .090" as that's what the pearloid/b/w/b is.
Chris

[Joe Gwinn]

Yeah. I went and looked at brass stock and it was $88 for a square foot! I'll have to take a look at the aluminum. Also, on these guits, are the pickguards not the same thickness as the metal parts? That's why I was leaning towards .090" as that's what the pearloid/b/w/b is.

Where? What kind and thickness? Brass is expensive, but it isn't that expensive.

[Bruce Johnson]

Yeah, that sounds like the price for a square foot of 1/2" plate.....At my local metal supplier, brass sheet/plate is around $5.45/lb. In comparison, 6061 aluminum is about $3.20/lb. A square foot of 0.090" brass should be around $10. A square foot of 0.090" aluminum will be about $2.50. Remember that aluminum is lighter weight, for the same size, so brass ends up being about 4 times the price, for the same dimension plate/bar.

As I said before, when I'm making metal plates or pickguards for instruments, which are going to be plated, I make them from aluminum unless there's some real good reason to use brass. There's no difference in the cost of the plating, assuming that you are doing the prep and polishing yourself. I usually use 0.063" thick plate for control plates and pickguards, and 0.090" plate for standard-type neck plates.

Do you have a sheet metal shop (that does ductwork and general metal work) in your area? Ask nicely, and they'll probably give you a couple small scraps of aluminum plate from their dumpster.

[verhoevenc]

I dunno. But I'm just north of DC so I'm gunna hazard a guess that there's SOMETHING around here.
Sadly, I don't remember where I saw $88... I looked and ran hahaha. I did however contact a metal plating shop in the area and was quoted anywhere from $25-$35 for EACH of those plates to be chromed?!
Chris

[David King]

If you have a model/hobby shop in the area they will sell K&S brass up to .062" thick. Fender's metal parts were always thinner than the PG material (which was closer to .098" thick). The K & S display will usually have a 6" x 12" sheet which will yield quite a few plates and tailpieces. eBay is another source and is often cheaper for small sections.
I have my 6061 aluminum hardware plated in bright nickel from time to time and it always comes out looking stellar. You may have to send out a considerable distance to get good plating done.
Plating companies usually have a minimum of $50 or $75 and you can often get a small stack done for that amount. Plating is expensive.

I haven't used copper myself but it's available as flashing to high end roofers though what they use is mostly thinner gauge stuff.

Be careful when drilling brass, I actually just bent a 1" drill trying to drill through a 1/8" thick brass banjo tailpiece. I've never bent a drill like that before. You must put a tiny back bevel on the leading edges of the drill so that the rake angle is 0º. See this photo from Frank Ford's website:
http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/ShopTips/064.jpg

[Bruce Johnson]

I have all of my plating done by Van Nuys Plating, here in Van Nuys, CA. I've been using them exclusively for about 12 years. They do excellent work on small parts, and they do lots of plating for other Luthiers and musical instrument parts companies. And they work by mail order, if you like. They are only about 12 miles from me, but these days I often mail my batches of parts back and forth to them, to avoid wasting time in the snarling San Fernando Valley traffic.

Yes, they have a $100 minimum order. Control plates like yours will cost about $10 each in Show Chrome, and maybe $8 each in Bright Nickel.

BUT, and this is important, that assumes that you have the parts fully polished and ready for plating. If they have to polish them, it'll be $40-$50 each. As I explained before, most of the work is in the polishing. You have to either do it yourself, or pay them to do it. If you sent them to me, I would charge you about $50 each to polish them and have them plated.

If you only have one or two parts, and aren't in a big hurry, you can send them to me and I can include them in one of my regular batches. That will save you some money on the minimum order thing. But again, that assumes that you have done the polishing.

I personally wouldn't recommend using copper for plates like these. For one thing, copper is at least twice the price of brass! And it's gummy and soft, nasty to drill.

Like David says, when drilling brass, and especially copper, you have to be careful. Standard drill bits will grab hold and rip the part out of your hands. It's best to use drill bits that have been "drubbed" (that's what it's commonly called) to 0 degrees, like David is describing. For drilling holes larger than 1/4" in thin soft metal plates, I use special drill bits which are ground just for sheet metal. They look sort of like woodworking brad point bits, with a small pilot in the center. You want to use them in a Slow speed drill press, like under 200 rpm, drilling onto a piece of sacrificial wood.