[KCV6]

ok, I have just recently completed 2 Mini cooper S badges, both with the same sort of level of pitting as your bezels by the looks.

The first one I sand blasted, fine grit at medium pressure. Would not do this again, as all it did was make the underlying pits a lot worse, it did provide a perfect surface to flash copper though.

Degrease, rinse and Flash copper for 30 mins.

Small butane soldering iron with fine blowtorch adapter. heated from reverse side and solder pasted all pits.

Sanded back and dremeled (is that a word) starting with 400 grit working back to 1200 grit wet and dry. A Downside with soldering. No mater how hard you try, with a badly pitted surface you will go back through to pot metal, don't care what anyone says. if you re-plate with solder or even then go to nickle, you can not heat again. the solder will re-flow and cause any plating over it to blister and loose adhesion. so only solder once.

re-flash copper for 15 mins. Inspect for any pin holes and clean and then flash copper until there is a complete coat on all surfaces.

Acid copper and sand and acid copper and sand etc until you can polish the item to a high shine. Copper is the platers bondo. LOL

finish with desired top plate, i.e. nickel, copy chrome, chrome.


The second one I alkaline stripped the existing chrome rather than sand blasted Basically a tank with sodium hydroxide (draino) and two dummy stainless anodes with the current reversed, bring the voltage up until the bezel starts to fizz, generally will be stripped in 5 mins doing this (1A per square inch). A side note of caution, this bath must be disposed of properly as it now contains chromium in an unknown quantity, however it can be used over and over.

wet and dry sanded as best as possible.

I then chloride Zinc plated and sanded and re-zinc plated and sanded, why zinc? One, Zinc is cheaper than copper and two you get an excelent fresh zinc surface to flash copper once too. Remember to use a sulphuric based pickle between zinc plates. (10%).

Polish and then top plate as above.

I have not mentioned every pickle and rinse step, there are many

Hope this helps.