To the tune of I’ll be Home for Christmas. Yes, I went there!
While I was at the paint shop picking up the Imperial – documented in Back in Black! – I got a call from Librandi’s Plating that the chrome parts were ready for pickup. Sweet! I wasn’t expecting it until February.
I got the call on a Thursday. A quick examination of the weather forecast revealed an opening between storms in a few days so we scheduled a quick road trip on the following Monday and Tuesday to get the parts. There are times when it is good to be retired! We have had years where our truck was snowed in from January to April so it was a relief to get the parts back before winter really hits. And the week before Christmas was perfect timing.
All the parts were carefully wrapped in 62 layers of newspaper and we were in a bit of a hurry so we decided not to unwrap them for inspection. We did check them against our list – I was actually able to identify each part even though they were wrapped up.
With a certain amount of trepidation I started unwrapping and checking the parts. Would they meet my hopes and expectations? Or would they be just OK?
As I unwrapped each part I was almost shocked. The parts are absolutely beautiful! You expect chrome to be shiny – the difference is in the finish and details. And these parts are close to perfect. They have a jewel like appearance and a great finish. The more parts I unwrapped the happier I became.
This is how things started out:
And how they finished up:
This picture doesn’t really do justice to the quality of work, so let’s take a close look at one part:
As mentioned, chrome is shiny. A poorly done part will be shiny but have defects like ripples and waves, pits, bubbles, color variations, gouges, and similar visible artifacts. As you can see from the reflections, these parts are smooth and clean – absolutely beautiful!
The plating shop did have a solid foundation to build on. The Imperial parts are very well made – they are solid and heavy and looked great when they left the factory. Still, the results exceeded my expectations!
There was, however, one slight issue… As I unwrapped the very last part, the rear bumper, and checked and admired the finish something seemed a bit off. Stepping back and studying the bumper it suddenly hit me – it was the wrong bumper!
When I called Librandi’s and explained the situation I was met with a moment of shocked silence followed by a quick search and “OK, I have your bumper here on the bench in front of me.” It turns out that my order number was 31701 and the other order was 31781. My bumper is a 1963 (Chrysler) Imperial, and the other bumper is a 1964 Chrysler. The two orders were next to each other. And, to be fair, the bumpers look a lot alike, especially when wrapped up.
I’m working with Librandi’s to get each bumper to its rightful owner. Since I’m 400 miles from Librandi’s and the bumpers are about 7 feet long,weigh about 80 pounds, and are easy to damage in shipping, this isn’t as simple as you might expect. Stay tuned for updates!
In the meantime I’m a bit frustrated. I really want to get all of these beautiful parts back on the Imperial and see how it looks. But before that I have to color sand the paint and polish the car to get the paint looking the way it deserves to. And to get the paint to the level of the chrome parts! Expect more whining about this task.