Replacing brightwork with Stainless Steel

How deep is your pocket? Speaking as a toolmaker, unless the tooling already exists, you'd be looking at tens of thousands of pounds for press tooling to manufacture just a bumper. A radiator shell wouldn't be much cheaper. Not so much for an overider, but still many thousands of pounds. IMO potential sales could never justify the setup costs, even if you saved on the tooling by having them made in the far east. Mike.

The message from "Mike G" contains these words:

I imagine he means one-off - in which case he needs someone who can use an English wheel so basically a proper old fashioned bodybuilder.

Many of the things made of muckite are so because their shape requires casting rather than pressing. So to produce an identical item in SS might be plain impossible.

Nothing wrong with chrome plated steel for durability - provided the job is done correctly. And for low volume, this would be vastly cheaper than making new pressings for SS.

It's a relatively cheap process to reproduce Mazak castings using bronze which doesn't suffer from acne like mazak. Still needs good chroming, though.

Investment casting (aka lost wax) is possible in stainless, though, as Dave says, brass or bronze is more common. The number of fake Rolls-Royce mascots on ebay is testament to the ease of the process.

Never liked SS on cars because of its preferential corrosion characteristics.

Brass castings chrome plated are better, better still copper castings chrome plated (one less step). I don't thing copper would be any softer than mazak.

Eh? I've got lots of SS on my 20 odd year old car which lives outside and there's no corrosion on it - at all.

Do you know the cost of copper these days? ;-)

Yup.Even if the rest of the car rots away, the bright trim remain near perfect. :-) AFAIC there's nothing to beat SS for bright trim. Never corrodes, and can be repolished if it gets a little scuffed. AFAIR virtually all the bright trim on our old Rovers is SS. Mike.

Its not the SS which deteriorates, but the steel which corrodes, if the SS comes into contact with it.

They cut down power lines to keep up the supply. Just the other day sections of the overhead cable went missing off the railway, caused train delays.

Why not use SS nuts and bolts then to assemble the car? Good idea never corrodes,

I don't think you can get high tensile SS.

Jim

Untrue, SS needs to be exposed to oxygen in order to remain in good conditions. SS screws and bolts suffer from crevice corrosion, particularly in saline environments such as would be experienced with fasteners exposed to winter salt spray.

Sailors are familiar with this. It was thought that replacing parts on boars with SS would helpt to resist corrosion but in practice SS especially below or bear the waterline has a shorter life than the alternatives.

A chap I used to sail with runs a business in Kent called "Shiny boat stuff". He makes pulpit rails, ladders, etc from stainless - not a welding bead in sight. I can't find his web site at the moment, but will keep looking.

he won't be the only one - but you will be looking at hundreds of quid per bumper, I'd have thought.

Yep thats the preferential corrosion bit with SS.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) saying something like:

Pig of a job.

It took you six days to think that up?

Sow what?

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

Don't hog all the puns.

I think you may have a sty in your eye.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) saying something like:

Time travels slowly here.