Anyone gone so far as to have the galvanizing on brake rotor dust shields re-done? Cost?

Local powder coating place has a chrome finish that is fairly shiny like metal, but doesn't have the splotchy pattern like galvanizing does. Might be possible to airbrush some different shades of silver/gray over the fake chrome PC and get kinda close.

Curious to know what year make and model car that your asking about galvanizing dust shields.
Some years they were just painted black on some disc brakes, and other years they were galvanized.

A body Kelsey Hayes small bolt setup. Supposedly off a 71 340 Demon.

I took the dust shields off and you can see the galv. coating where the dust shield was covered up by the foam gasket.

They were unpainted galvanized. No source I know of can do them correctly.

If that is the case I may take one and look at the "chrome" powder coating option, which is reasonably reflective, and then try to put a faux galv. pattern on over top of that with paint. Might look passable at a glance. Not a show car, but would like things to look reasonably close to oem where $$$ allows.


Could also just paint them black???

I have a stack of NOS brake shields that I bought years ago. Doubt I'll ever use them. I bought them when I was doing 11.75 swaps but I'm not into that anymore. They all appear to be galvanized but it is a fairly smooth finish.

A decent faux finish can be done with chrome spray followed by dabbing with crumpled newspaper. With practice, it looks pretty good. I then sprayed a very light mist of satin clear to protect the finish. I can;t say anything about durability as my car is not road worthy at this time.

Unless you are doing a 100 point car, you don't need them, they just retain heat.

How original do you want to be, anyway?
Nobody is ever going to see them.
These are mine, with Rustoleum, "Galvanized" Spray can, rattle can, paint.
Well, i should have said, "were mine."
They sold 2 years ago. Old photo in the files.

You won't find a source in this country that can do hot galvi like that of the old process/finish...

consider hydrographics as a possibility? plenty of companies out there offering this service... https://youtu.be/ADq96RGRf00

The process that made the "splotchy" dark and light areas, called spangles, still exists big time. The spangles were produced on a high volume, continuous hot dip galvanizing line at a coated sheet mill. The sheet was then shipped to a stamping shop that made the part.

Back in the muscle car days, it was normal to make the galvanized steel sheet with very large spangles, because most customers preferred an appearance that was easily recognized as galvanized sheet rather than uncoated steel sheet.

Nowadays large spangles are not produced as much, and galvanized sheet is usually smaller 'regular spangle', 'min spangle', or 'zero spangle'.

Sometimes you can see large spangles on such things as traffic signal poles that are hot dip galvanized in a batch process rather than on a high speed line.

It's pretty exciting to stand next to the molten zinc pot with steel sheet running in and out at about 100 mph. Here's a 2 minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9nAtO7Oof8

I think the OP is more interested in a local source or process, your "source" is located in Saudi Arabia...

You won't like the cost. I sell steel pipe, and sometimes it needs to be galvanized. All galvanizers have a minimum charge. One that I deal with is 250.00. The other was 250.00, then they doubled it to 500.00.

you can get reasonably close using a paint called Hammerite ( sp ck ? )

I used it on some 1970 cuda parts several years ago

There is a couple different colors avail, and it took some practice to get it where I wanted it to be finish wise .

All true information and would like to add that galvanizing of years past was a mix of metals, the largest of which is zinc, the primary 2nd material was lead. Todays mix is zinc and nickel, and the reason galvanizing is much more flashy that spangle in the 70's. As memory serves nickel replaced lead in the 90's and came with issues, mainly the increased reflectivity for things like lamp posts or items used on an airport runway. To dull it a bit they use an acid solution for items requiring lower sheen.
Hot dip and sheet processing may be similar but the results usually vary. Hot dip platers usually don't like working with thin gauge car sheetmetal and will usually tell you they are not responsible for damage, they are set up for large jobs like lamp posts and other large industrial structure. Additionally the dip process produces a large buildup edge where material accumulates as the part is removed from the dip. I had some parts dipped, first by using an excess piece to see results. The dip house I went to had a salesmen with a car soft spot and really worked to help get as good of results as possible by blowing the lower edge of the parts as they were removed from the dip, helping to eliminate the buildup. They then did the acid dip to reduce the flashy surface finish. While you cannot get perfection relative to the sheet process its the only option you have as once formed the controlled sheet process cannot be performed. Throw in the lead Vs nickel of the old Vs current process and you can only match so close, even with the acid dip. I'm happy with the parts I had done as they are protected and carry the correct material . . . so to speak.

There is a company right here in Spokane that does hot galvanizing but they only treat parts they manufacture, sadly no amount of begging will get them to take on a small or even a moderately large run of car parts (muffler shields, license plate holder mechanisms, brake dust shields, etc.). Trust me, I've tried.

*The Spangle size on the A-body backing plates I've seen is a smaller size, roughly 1/8-1/4" or so splotches.

Here's a pic of my faux finish on my disc brake covers on my car. Probably nobody will ever see the finished product after the car is full assembled but it was fun to try and duplicate a finish that isn't available to the hobbyist.

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/attachments/pict1704-jpg.1714614689/

I looked and it appears I do have a hydro-dip company in the area, but they seem to specialize in camouflage and carbon fiber finishes. Their metal finishes on their website are smooth like paint out of a paint gun.

Powder coating place has hammertone finishes, but they don't look quite right as they are silver with black, red, blue, or green mixed in. I have seen spray cans at Home Depot with some fancy metal like finishes so maybe I'll look into those.

Right now a solid bright silver color with alternating shades of silver/grey on top is what I'm leaning towards. It needs to warm up a few degrees to be able to mess around with paint though.

You could buy the hydrographic sheets shown above and have your local dipper apply them?... or do it yourself

The reason for describing the complicated process that gave the original part the big galvanizing spangles was to imply it's an impossible dream to duplicate it. And also to say the process still exists but without lead as another poster said.

BTW this same discussion has been on this forum before concerning E-body license plate brackets originally made with the same big galvanizing spangles.

To be more helpful, there are a couple of other ways to deposit zinc on steel sheet. But neither is recommendable for restoring the part to its as-made appearance.

1. Electro-zinc plating - This will deposit a zinc coating of a few ten thousandths of an inch thick on steel sheet, about the same thickness as the original process. But there will be no spangles or crystals, because the zinc will not be melted.

2. Batch hot dip galvanizing - This is dipping the part in molten zinc like the original part was done, except without the very sophisticated control of variables that made the spangles. Besides, the pot chemistry is now different, the coating is around 10 times or more thicker, few dippers will accept thin steel sheet, too expensive, might not make spangles anyhow since there is no spangle control, etc.

Paint with special effects like wadded newspaper, etc., seems to be the best anyone can do with an impossible task.