RameGoom wrote:SLOT DYNASTY wrote:. So, all you serious collectors in this hobby, let's keep the plating 'period-correct'.
That's good advice and I intend to live by it. But I have a question. What about the Award Card bezel? Did they originally chrome those, or nickel plate? And, seems like the aftermarket parts are either chrome or polished stainless steel.
My question is, regarding trim pieces,
what is acceptable, and what is collector-desirable? I recently had a few of these on different machines where I replaced them with aftermarket parts, then decided to take the original mostly-badly-pitted pieces and send them out for chrome plating. I had two trim pieces on a Bell Boy trade stimulator, both badly pitted, and put the originals back on, albeit freshly plated. Made the machine look much better, but it's not "as-found" anymore. Still, the bad pitting cast a bad light on the otherwise nice machine.
It's a bit late now, to nickle plate something that you had chrome plated. Unless you have unlimited funds to do everything over.
Like I mentioned before, "all early machines had polished nickle parts, Not Chrome". Also, there is more than one type nickle. All
of the early machines were plated in Watts Nickle, which many shops do not do any longer. I have even found a couple in the past,
that didn't even know what it was. 'Go figure'! If you have a plater near you that does Watts, (also called Cold Nickle), that is the
way to go. This type holds up well with age, and cleaning with a dry cloth, usually suffices. The newer nickle, (also called Hot Nickle),
tends to tarnish quicker, if you don't keep after it with polish occasionally.
And yes, the parts on your "Bell Boy" should be nickle as well.
While we are on the plating subject, another thing that I should mention, are the castings that have pitting, or more commonly
referred to as Gas Holes. This is the case with many Jennings machines. Many of their castings weren't the best quality, compared
to other mfrs. They looked good when they were new, because the factory knew how to plate the castings, to hide all the sins.
After these machines age, and take a lot of abuse, and the plating starts to look shabby, many collectors will just bring the parts
to the plater, and say "plate it". It's not that simple. You have to find a plater that knows how to do these castings right. It is a bit
longer process than normal, as they have to float more than one coat of copper, (polishing in between), to fill in all the pits, before
putting on the final plating coat. This process can be done with both nickle and chrome. It is also a bit more costly, because of the
extra time involved, but it is well worth the effort.