Nickle plating-what case would you choose?

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strend

Gawd
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I recently met a guy who owns a local nickle/chrome plating shop. He offered to plate a case in chrome, nickle, or black nickle for free. Soooo, what I'm looking for is a case $150 or less (less is good ;) ).

I haven't really kept up with the case market lately. What case and plating would you chose?
 
I'm still up in the air about black nickel. It looks nice but it isn't 100% black...Here's chrome and black nickel (both polished).

chromeblacknickmb0.jpg
 
Qtip42 said:
I'm still up in the air about black nickel. It looks nice but it isn't 100% black...Here's chrome and black nickel (both polished).
Click to expand...

I've never seen black nickle in person. How reflective is it? As in would it even look better then a black aluminum case? I actually own a black P180, anyone know how big of a pain in the ass is it to take apart the side panels? If I do my p180, I'd like both sides of the doors done, which means I'd have to take them apart. I think the doors are stuck together with mass amounts of double sided tape (for sound dampening I guess?).
 
Plating and finish are two different things. You can have polished, satin (bead blasted), or brushed black nickel. Polished is in the picture I posted above. Below polished is satin.

Polished will look like a mirror. Satin is still sparkley (not reflective) similar to anodized aluminum in look. Brushed is either vertical or horizontal lines......or really whatever lines you wish.

I think satin black is nice for laptops, not sure about larger surface areas. Black nickel will scratch easy when polished
 
strend said:
I recently met a guy who owns a local nickle/chrome plating shop. He offered to plate a case in chrome, nickle, or black nickle for free. Soooo, what I'm looking for is a case $150 or less (less is good ;) ).

I haven't really kept up with the case market lately. What case and plating would you chose?
Click to expand...
The first thing you need to do is ask your source what kind of metal he can plate.
IIRC, the preferred substrate for plating is steel, aluminum being more commonly anodized, polished or powder coated.

If I'm right, this eliminates all the Lian-li cases.
The original Stacker (STC-T01) chassis is all steel and would be spectacular plated.
 
sprocket said:
The first thing you need to do is ask your source what kind of metal he can plate.
IIRC, the preferred substrate for plating is steel, aluminum being more commonly anodized, polished or powder coated.

If I'm right, this eliminates all the Lian-li cases.
The original Stacker (STC-T01) chassis is all steel and would be spectacular plated.
Click to expand...

You can easily plate aluminum.
 
sprocket said:
The first thing you need to do is ask your source what kind of metal he can plate.
IIRC, the preferred substrate for plating is steel, aluminum being more commonly anodized, polished or powder coated.

If I'm right, this eliminates all the Lian-li cases.
The original Stacker (STC-T01) chassis is all steel and would be spectacular plated.
Click to expand...

It's definitely possible to nickel plate aluminum, anodizing is probably more common but typically chroming and anodizing are used for two different reasons.

edit- I lose.
 
Arcygenical said:
You can easily plate aluminum.
Click to expand...
I know it can be done but aluminum is typically plated for wear considerations (valve bodies come to mind), as opposed to decorative finishes.
Many decorative plating shops are not set up for the specialized pre-treatment and different chemical baths required to plate alloy.

Since I would assume the OP's major consideration is the aesthetics rather than wear, it would be prudent to ask to see a sample of the plating (again, presuming his guy can even do it) before going forward.
 
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