Grill finishes

[Bgardner]

Guys

From pics I have seen of finished 33's I see for the grills there are some painted, some polished and possible some chromed grills out there.

Any input from experience.

[wrp]

I am wrestling with the appearance on mine. Sanding, polishing, and buffing does make them look appreciably better. Mine was nearly 6 years old before I began to drive the car. I drove the car for a year after completing the roadster version. Now I can recognize different effects against the finished paint. I am leaning towards polishing it. Less than chrome will better match my front suspension components.

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[NAZ]

If this is a driver, coatings will get rock chips and that's not very attractive. Chrome is very cool ad holds up well on a driver but expensive.

I polished mine but not to a mirror finish -- it's semi-glossy and much easier to maintain that way. A quick rub with polishing paste and it's like new. A mirror finish would take hours to restore and paint, powder coating, etc. would require a lot of sanding and recoating to repair road dings. Think about sanding in all those hard to reach areas.

[CVOBill]

Mine is chrome and is very easy to clean, but very pricey to have done. The finish will really depend on the look you're going after. Chrome is my favorite color so I got lucky.

[Smoking Joe]

I had my grill, windshield frame and roll bar chromed to show quality by Electro Plating of El paso (Electroplatingelpasp.com) for about $1800 plug sipping. I've used them on other projects with award winning finishes 9667096671

[Bgardner]

Looks great

I think I will go this route, will need to think about the other parts as well

[Bgardner]

Mine is chrome and is very easy to clean, but very pricey to have done. The finish will really depend on the look you're going after. Chrome is my favorite color so I got lucky.

Bill do you have a picture or a posting somewhere I can look at grill

[HVACMAN]

I just pulled my grill out of the box to begin polishing it. I think I will go for the satin look that NAZ talked about. What concerns me are some imperfections in the material. Some are quite deep. Is this common? What is the best way to deal with these?967319673296733

[NAZ]

HVACMAN, I used a combination of power sanders to deal with the imperfections to get them close enough they are hard to see. The other advantage of using a satin finish is it tends to hide some of these imperfections. Think about how a shinny finish reflects the light so perfect that every wave in the surface is highlighted -- satin will hide much of that waviness from the imperfect casting.

My finish is somewhere between mirror finish and fine Scotchbrite. I used a medium corse aluminum polish, the kind you would use after 2500 grit sandpaper and before the final extra fine polish. Looks good but I was building a race car not a show car. My friend polished his 34 Ford radiator grill to a mirror finish (took him weeks to get it perfect) and spends hours keeping it shinny. After seeing mine he decided to make his look like mine as it's so much easier to keep looking good. IMO if you want shinny go with chrome. If you want practical good looks go with a satin finish.

[CVOBill]

Bill do you have a picture or a posting somewhere I can look at grill

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[HVACMAN]

HVACMAN, I used a combination of power sanders to deal with the imperfections to get them close enough they are hard to see. The other advantage of using a satin finish is it tends to hide some of these imperfections. Think about how a shinny finish reflects the light so perfect that every wave in the surface is highlighted -- satin will hide much of that waviness from the imperfect casting.

My finish is somewhere between mirror finish and fine Scotchbrite. I used a medium corse aluminum polish, the kind you would use after 2500 grit sandpaper and before the final extra fine polish. Looks good but I was building a race car not a show car. My friend polished his 34 Ford radiator grill to a mirror finish (took him weeks to get it perfect) and spends hours keeping it shinny. After seeing mine he decided to make his look like mine as it's so much easier to keep looking good. IMO if you want shinny go with chrome. If you want practical good looks go with a satin finish.

Thanks NAZ. I wasn't sure if there was some type of filler for these because they are deep. I probably shouldn't worry, I'm not building a show car either. My skills aren't that good. My goal is a nice 50-50 (50 mph at 50 feet) daily driver.