Im exploring what it takes to open a chroming shop. Does anyone know how much equipment is required and how difficult of a learning curve there is to the process?
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Im exploring what it takes to open a chroming shop. Does anyone know how much equipment is required and how difficult of a learning curve there is to the process?
anyone?
As banks, we don't like them. To many environmental liabilities and concerns. Much of the City of Orange (Batavia, south of Katella) has contaminated soil due to them.
First and probably most important is to pick a City and State that will allow you do business with a minimum of overhead for eviromental requirements. Plating requires some toxic chemicals like those that can make cyanide when they are accidently released into the sewers and mix with other chemicals from other businesses. A good friend of mine owns a large commercial plating shop, and he says he has weekly visits from inspectors looking for any reason to fine him for something. This ties into your first question in that the location you open up in will have an effect on the equipment you will need.
Im exploring what it takes to open a chroming shop. Does anyone know how much equipment is required and how difficult of a learning curve there is to the process?
Don't dare try putting in a plating shop in California. You will be regulated to death. The epa is getting in on the act everywhere. Not only with your location, but how you process your work too. They are trying to get all the decorative plating shops to switch to "tri-valent" plating instead of the current process that uses poisonous chemicals. The biggest problem that all of the plating shops I use is getting someone that knows how to polish. It is the polishing process that is the big bottleneck in the operation. Besides the heavy metals thay everyone is exposed to in the plating process, there is the environmental problem with the polishing. I'd steer clear of any plating business. Not only are you going to have problems with the business itself, you are leaving yourself open for employee lawsuits because of the exposure. Land owners won't let you open a place on their land, and if you own the land, you will have a hard time borrowing money on the land. Then if you decide the sell the property later, you will have to have all sorts of coring done to see if there is any contamination in the soil. Ground water contamination suits will pierce any "corporate veil" and they will take everything you own or will own. A buddy of mine bought a piece of property over 30 years ago. They found groundwater contamination on his property that was probably left from the previous owner. Now he is responsible for it's clean-up and removal. The fed were talking about taking his property, destroying the building and taking everything he owns to pay for the clean-up. Even though he didn't cause the contamination. But because he owns the property.
Im exploring what it takes to open a chroming shop. Does anyone know how much equipment is required and how difficult of a learning curve there is to the process?
I have been wanting to do the same thing in Havasu, because the only guy around for 200 miles is in Parker and he SUCKS AZZ big time:mad: :mad:
I can be the bank and train the right person:idea:
Thers is alot of liabilites. I owned a gold plating shop five years and sold it. Did mainly Harley/Caddy's and alot of various custom work. The chemical disposal was the biggest hassel due to all the Cyanide and HCL used in the gold proecess. In Chroming there are a lot more steps than just "chroming" a part. Stripping, polishing, degreasing, base coatings for a good chrome job. If i was to get back into it I would just do a very small scale set up. I dont have my initial start up costs around any more but it cost me roughly 40K to get going initially on a small scale. Baths for stripping/rinsing and plating. Rectifiers were not cheap. Solutions for gold were around 400 bucks a gallon ( 15 years ago). Polishing systems were not that bad as i made most myself. A backyard or small shop for custom chroming would be a fun buisness once you got going! Go for it! Just be ready to be scruitinized/inspected by every enviromental agency around, but if you do all your homework and set up properly it can be very lucritive.