JEM/RG Chroming service on ebay, UK

[littlejohnieskint]

Rich, please stop bursting my bubble of "you". You have always been a hero but then say you spent $100,000 and then never did? What?! please mate... dont lose your credability over one arguement.. you know how word travels. Did you spend $100,000 on the research of chroming techniques and the JS2 or not... if you did let me know please.. we could exchange notes... I do find it odd that you spent (or nearly, or didnt!, or.. whatever ?!)spent $1000000 on researching chroming techniques and drew the conclusion that for $100000 it couldnt be done.. yet slept above a room of 4 Chromeboys... all chromed retailing at $5000 approx!.. odd!
still Rich.. your the god so good luck to you.. you know EVERYTHING about chroming Jems except this.. I can do it.. and have factual photo evidence on Ebay and you cant. and all it cost me was about three weeks of solid brain storming.. and approx £1000..
never mind mate.. Im still the **** ripping everyone off with my Mylan or milan or myla chrome flaky finish crap or whatever !!!..

[littlejohnieskint]

Please Rich... we are the same which is why we are rucking! I should read before I type but right now Im fuming... I take back all I say.. and apologise for the last time.. I cannot believe I am rucking with my hero.. sorry for speaking out of turn and I still love you.. as of tomorrow all my chroming services will be cancelled

[Creativemusicconcepts]

littlejohnieskint:

Let me simply say, I applaud your efforts! Your work looks very good to me.

Personaly, I don't care if it is chome, mirror, or dipped in platinum!

the finish looks good, you obviously took some initiative to try and accomplish a difficult finish.

As long as you stand behind your work after it is completed, that is all you need to be concerned with.

I hope you have tremendous success........focus on the positive!

[littlejohnieskint]

I now understand that you purchased a gg and g guitar and believe what you say.. its just hard as people have slated me tonight and yet I know they have never seen my work... it hurts Rich.. i know you too have had chritisism at one stage or another for something unwarranted and it makes you angry..
Im off to bed and again I apologise for being short and rude.. I hope you find the time to watch my latest complete Jem on that weel known auction site and then read the buyers feedback.. im sure it will be great.. cos if I thought it wouldnt be I would re do the guitar

[Rich]

Nah, I was GOING to spend 100K to do a run, and before I spend $1k I want to know it's going to work, much less spending 100 times that. Then Ibanez released the JS2000 [which would have been my name for them] and of course the JS2K, and there weren't any good options left, IF I had been able to proceed.

Are you doing work for Sims? I'd read they were able to plate guitar effectively, of course I figured they were subcontracting.

If you figured it out more power to you. I'd love to know the process [and I'm damn good at keeping secrets if you don't know ]. But you sure damn confused me covering your tracks! JD told me long ago that a guy from Alaska had flown to HUSA with a perfect real chromed JS and that he had found the "secret", but they were not interested after their own fiasco. Then he [dumb] lost touch with the guy. I looked for him for about a month calling Ak platers.

[waz]

littlejohnieskint:

PM sent

[Rich]

[quote=".. its just hard as people have slated me tonight and yet I know they have never seen my work... [/quote]

BTW I sure wasn't slating you if it came off that way. I was just stating the facts as I know them, about films, clearing films, their cost, chroming, processes, etc. Said nothing about your work except "use a bonding agent", which I guess I just mistranslated what you said. You're cheap for that many coats of clear alone, your time's worth money just like mine. But always expect me to question what I don't understand, or doesn't make sense

[Whey]

lol mark never showed me the carbon fiber before interesting lol.

[littlegreenman]

Littlejohnnieskint,

I was never offended by your work, doesn't bother me in the least.
I say the chrome finishes will flake on the clear because I've done it, it will last for about 2 years, then when the adhesive on the back of the chrome vinyl breaks down it will move and all your clear will peel. I've used every adhesion promotor out there. Yes, you can make it stick, but once that adhesive on the back of the chrome film gets old you'll have problems, I've been there.

As for your Carbon fiber, you stated in this thread that the pictures are of the carbon print vinyl but you are now using real carbon. That's fine, but your ebay ad stated real carbon fiber and the pictures show the vinyl, I had no way of knowing that you weren't trying to pull a fast one on people.

Yes, you can actually chrome plate a guitar as you state, and it will look gorgeous, for 6 months, maybe a year, but the wood will continue to move as heat and humidity in the atmosphere change. Eventually this will lead to lifting, cracking and flaking of the chrome. It is for this exact reason that Ibanez did the JS10ths out of lucite, not wood for the bodies.

When I did the first chrome topped guitar in my shop I thought it was great, looked awesome, but I suspected it may have problems so I never offered it, sure enough 2 years and a bit later the sample looks like crap. If you want to take the chances go for it, maybe you have figured it out better than I did, I'm not a know it all person who never makes mistakes. I've dropped close to 15K in the past 2 years trying to get the ultimate chrome finish, I still don't have it. The chrome paints out there look like crap to me, the chrome film doesn't hold up, and real chrome plating does not last on wood. Honestly, I couldn't care less if you don't want to heed any words of caution, but if you have customers coming back you upset because the chrome is looking crappy you'll now know why.

I see SIMS is now offering chrome finishes as well, they look awful on their site, very rough. They're using the cosmichrome system I believe, and it looks bad in their pic's, it will also be affected by the wood. ALL paint is affected as wood moves, but will 99.9% of regular colors you'll never notice it because it's not reflective.

As for doing chrome finishes, I have zero desire to do them, same with the LED's, if you want to do all that more power to you, just please be aware that the liability in LED inlays and chrome finishing is very high, this is why SIMS charges what they do. If you have a problem after the customer receives it you need to be willing to redo the job. This means flaking finish, burnt out LED's, etc.

My main goal is 100% customer satisfaction, if I'm not 100% confident in a particular finish or idea, I don't do it. The only reason I said anything in this post is I know how you're doing your chrome finish (your posts only verified it) and I know what the long term results are.
You can't imagine how many emails I've gotten in the past from people who had somebody do a "custom job" to their guitar and now want me to fix it because it looks awful. I'm in no way saying your work looks awful, but I don't ever want to be getting emails about clear flaking, or chrome looking bubbly or anything like that.

Good luck with your endeavours.

[Rich]

My chromeboy has held up surprisingly well [KNOCK WOOD], over 15 years old and it's got one bubble on the back that ranges from 1/2" to 3/4" depending on the season, and wrinkles inside the horns that grow and shrink depending on the season. Then again, it hasn't been "played" in 13 years, and I'm so damn scared to touch the thing I never even open the case [and literally cringe when I do wonderring if the bubble burst or it started to flake]

[Dr Mindcrime]

Originally Posted by Rich

My chromeboy has held up surprisingly well [KNOCK WOOD], over 15 years old and it's got one bubble on the back that ranges from 1/2" to 3/4" depending on the season, and wrinkles inside the horns that grow and shrink depending on the season. Then again, it hasn't been "played" in 13 years, and I'm so damn scared to touch the thing I never even open the case [and literally cringe when I do wonderring if the bubble burst or it started to flake]

Hey Rich, I was wondering about the aluminum coated basswood Js -series. I heard Joe uses them and perfers them now. Does aluminum take to wood better then anything else? Or is there still problems.

[Rich]

IMO and unbelievably I couldn't confirm this with either Joe or his tech, but I'm pretty sure it's a hollow aluminum body like a Harley Davidson or Mustang Strat. Nothing plated about it. All Mike knew about it was it scratched easy and was tarnishing

[darren wilson]

Raw polished aluminum is nice, but it does get a "patina" over time. Even anodized aluminum scratches and turns dark gray. However, couldn't an aluminum body be easily chrome plated? Hasn't Tokai been doing that with their aluminum-bodied Talbo guitars and basses for years?

[Rich]

Yup, and I'm pretty sure the Harley and Mustang are both chromed. Go figure. If there's some new way to plate "with" aluminum I don't know about it, I thought aluminum required very high heats and voltages to work with.

[Rich]

If anybody's intereted I finally loaded the pics of that GG&G JS I had [2 years later, this is my new solution for pics on the used page though]

http://www.ibanezrules.com/images/used_index/js1n/