I understand metal must be smooth for smooth finish. I intend to have deflect panels behind grille to be semi-gloss black, like under hood.
Questions: What comments/thoughts on chroming or black paint on spotwelded headlite bucket/grill mount pieces?
Should I drill out spotwelds & remove these if plating only main face piece of grille? I may detach them anyway to better smooth front ring bezel/lips.
Thanks for any input here. John

 

Not sure what you're asking. The 56 Custom Cab Grill was all chrome with the center support painted black. If you are doing something different and only chroming the center you'll have to remove the headlight buckets. FYI the buckets are different, so mark them right or left.

 

If you're chroming the grille, whether the whole thing or pieces, it has to come apart.

 

I didn't know that. Learn something every day.

 

Thanks for the responses. I apologize for lack of description here. The grille piece, #8200, as shown on page 264 of Illustrations Catalog, 1948-1956 Ford Truck, Parts and Accessories, is actually comprised of three sheetmetal parts which are spotwelded together.
My description of these three basic parts are as follows:
1.) Main grille face, (big part you see from front)
2.) Headlite & grille mount (to air deflector panel), left, and
3.) Headlite & grille mount (to air deflector panel), right.

Parts 2. & 3. are spotwelded into the rear portions of part 1.

Not trying to be cute, just explicit.
My question is whether part#8200 can be submitted to chrome plater as one piece or need I separate parts 2. & 3. from part 1., by cutting out spotwelds?
My other question is what are thoughts on parts #2. & 3. being black (same as deflect. panels, rad. mount, etc.) or chrome like main grille face- part #1. This would be opinion about appearance. I plan to chrome parklite frames/bezels. Shaved hood. Main truck finish will probably be some kind of red.
Thank you. John

 

Electroplating, by nature, will not go into corners. The current will travel to the path of least resistance. You have to drill the spot welds and chrome the three pieces, headlight pods and center bar, separately.

 

Not on a 56 grill, its one piece with no spot welds between the headlight and center, 53-55 yes they must come apart. By the OP gallery they have a 56

 

So you weld them back together after chroming? That sounds dangerous.....

 

All I have ever seen they bolt everything back together, you already have holes from drilling out the spot welds

 

My bad for not knowing what I was talking about. Forgot 56's were one piece. Too used to working on old stuff, the newfangled trucks befuddle me. The part that threw me was OP was asking (to my understanding) if he needed to cut the spot welds out between the round ends and center section, and typically that answer is yes. If there's no spot welds, there's nothing to cut. Sorry for any confusion. But if you want to chrome a 56 grille, it still has to be disassembled to look like this...

 

The 56 grill IS one piece but the headlight buckets will have to separated from the grill assembly to have it fully chromed-
1956 Ford Pickup Truck F100 F600 Original V8 Chrome Grill Bracket | eBay

 

Thanks, for this info. Other nite on "How's It Made", they showed Zippo lighter cases, with top & bottom hinged together, being chrome plated. I was surprised it could be done that way, but, maybe size does matter after all...
I shall remove headlite bucket mounts & may just paint them black.
Mounted chromed grille may appear to be floating. Guess if it looks weird or such- I'll just get the mounts plated also. No biggie for redo. Use small, truss head SS fasteners in place of spotwelds or ??...
Thanks, again for the time & info... John

 

With the high cost of chrome these days, might be cheaper to buy a repro which is widely available. Haven't heard if the repros have fitting issues or not, best to check.

 

For those not familiar with the '56 grille construction, these are the parts that are welded in place:

 

Drill out the spotwelds and remove the headlight buckets from the crossbar. Have each of these three pieces chromed separately. When it comes time to reassemble there are various ways to re-attach the buckets to the bar...I chose pop rivets. I used the biggest pop rivet that would fit in my Marson poprivet gun and then reinforced the back of the rivet with an aluminum washer prior to installing the rivet. This technique works great and the chrome is perfect even down into the crevices.