Silvering headlight reflectors

[Morgan Wright]

Who is good at re-silvering these? 

 

When I took the headlights apart 3 years ago, the silver was good, but a little rust got on them because I had used vinegar to soak them apart. Instead of just wiping off the rust, I got the genius idea to use silver polish, which quickly removed all the silver. So now I have to silver them.

 

Good winter project!

 

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Edited January 21, 2022 by Morgan Wright (see edit history)

[Jim Nelson]

I had my 1935 Buick reflectors re-done.   It cost  me last year about $70.00 each.   I haven't put them together yet but they still look like new.   If you want the guy I'll dig it up.    He is in ? southern Michigan.   Mine have parking lights mounted on the inside of the reflector in the top.    I have converted to 12 volts so I replaced the original bulbs and sockets.   I will mount  halogen 'P4'  bulbs with their sockets.   I needed to open the socket mounting holes ( not much ) to accept the new and much brighter lights.   I bought the conversion system from Snyders model 'A' catalog.   BTW,  that same 'P-4' bulb socket can also mount a bright LED . bulb using the same socket.   LED bulb uses about 750 ma vs the halogen bulbs that use aprox 3.5 amps.   Both are dual type bulbs.  (hi / low Lumination ).   I don't 'plan to drive at dusk/night BUT things happen so I will be prepared.   I got caught about 100 miles from home and the sun beat me home.   dang it.   

[Hubert_25-25]

Morgan,

There are 2 options. 

1)      Send your headlights to a plater that does silver plating. 

2)      Send your headlights to a plater for nickel plating.  Then send them to Uvira in Merlin Oregon for lifetime coating. 

 

Regular silver plating will tarnish over time and need to be repolished.  Uvira is a one and done process.  I did the Uvira process and am very happy with the results.  I could not tell you the cost difference as you probably need to get current quotes.    Hugh

 

 https://forums.aaca.org/topic/301595-headlight-resilvering-who-does-it/

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Hubert_25-25 (see edit history)

[Old26Buick]

I send my reflectors to I think Washington State o have them Uvira after nickel platings. Been over 20 years and still look excellant

[Jim Nelson]

I vote for Uvira.   I think I did mine in Nickel for the same reasons.   my guy is over her in the southern Mich. area so I sent it closer to me (Fla.).   

[Morgan Wright]

I'd love to use Uvira but I'm HPOF and have to stick with silver. 

[Morgan Wright]

This is my car the day I bought it. The silver is fine, and did not tarnish in the 100 years since it was made.

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Morgan Wright (see edit history)

[Marty Roth]

I used UVIRA many years ago,

and was satisfied with the quality, price, and reasonable time to complete and return ship

[Bloo]

I sent mine out to Frank Mance Plating for real silver after seeing pictures of @Terry Wiegand's reflectors. They did a very nice job.

 

I imagine you could do it yourself somehow, but silver plate to a reasonable thickness would most likely require some sort of cyanide bath, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

 

For Aluminum/Glass, UVIRA gets rave reviews. Are they still doing it?

 

1 hour ago, Morgan Wright said:

This is my car the day I bought it. The silver is fine, and did not tarnish in the 100 years since it was made.

 

I think you were fortunate. In period, an over-abundance of shot reflectors were what drove the change to sealed beam around 1940.

 

One of several reasons I stuck with silver was to find out how long it would last with proper care. My silver plating is 2 years old now, and on my recent road trip I noticed a very slight bit of tarnish when I pulled over in Iowa to change a bulb. You can't see it unless you take the lens off. It will clean up easily I think, and I probably shouldn't allow it to increase. I use the car more than most people would these days. A car that sits pampered indoors all the time might go longer before you start to see the signs of tarnish.

 

The "period" cleaning method is to use lampblack and alcohol on something extremely soft, like a cottonball, and do not make circular motions, only go straight out from the middle to the outer rim. There is only so much silver, and though there are more aggressive methods, less is more. When you need more powerful polish it may already be too late. Before replating, mine did not respond to lampblack at all. They were already showing brass in places. With a very mild silver polish, it might have been wadding polish, I was able to get the silver parts to come back without noticably losing more plating. Obviously I couldn't bring the worn through areas back.

 

I'd love for these replated reflectors to last 100 years, but the chances aren't looking good to me. As it sits, with the tiny amount of data I have, I think it's going to be the lampblack trick every 2 years until the silver wears through. I have no idea how long that will be.

 

Keep us posted on what you do and let us know how it turns out.

 

 

[Morgan Wright]

My plan is to use silver and try to figure out some kind of wax coat or other coat on top of it, to prevent oxygen from getting to the silver.

 

Maybe this?

 

https://www.everbritecoatings.com/silver

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Edited January 21, 2022 by Morgan Wright (see edit history)

[dibarlaw]

Bloo:

 I used Frank Mance Plating in Pittsburgh also for the re-silvering.

Beautiful work! 

I had also wanted to do the Uvira Process. At the time, the bids from the usual platers to do just the required nickel first were more than what Mance would do the entire job for (nickel and then silver). 

 When I first got my Standard in 2011 the reflectors looked as if they had been scrubbed with bathroom cleanser.

   

Such a sad jaundiced look. They were redone over 7 years ago on the 25 Standard and then I had my spare 25 Master reflectors done. Prices have gone up appreciably.

No noticeable tarnish as of yet. I have the original lamps and reflectors on the Master and I had polished with the lampblack technique.

 

On its way home from the Farm 2016  After clean-up and polishing of the reflectors and bezels plus a re-cored radiator. I repainted and installed a 1926 shell, as a suitable for plating 1924-1925 shell has not yet surfaced.

 The yellow green color is reflection of the green foliage across the alley. Not worn down to brass color. They are still quite useable.

They will not take another polishing before the silvering will be gone. Not bad for a 97-year-old car that was in open barn with poor storage for over 40 years before it was fixed up in the 1970s.

 For me I have a feel of urgency to get much of this outside work done since many of the services are disappearing and or prices are rising beyond my comfort level in many cases.

 I just sent a group of parts for nickel plating to Niagara Plating. They have been reasonable in price and always have done good work for me. Turn around was fairly quick. This is the 4the order I sent them.

(Wind wing brackets and footrest brackets). We will see what the estimate is this time. Each order was about the same as far as surface area and complexity. Each successive order over the last 4 years was more expensive. Add to the fact that shipping cost with ALL carriers has nearly doubled in a year.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by dibarlaw
Added content (see edit history)

[MCHinson]

I also used Frank Mance Plating. I don't recall what the price was, but it ended up being a bit less than the price that he initially quoted.  

[Buick35]

I thought I ruined my silver plating on my 35 Buick but I tried turtle wax chrome polish and was surprised at the results.

[DonMicheletti]

Morgan, If you have the reflectors silver plated, ask the plater if you should wax the plating. You may do more harm than good. Silver and its reflectivity is sensitive to abuse.

[Jolly_John]

I agree with Don. I believe a wax coating over real silver plating will affect the natural reflectivity of the silver. Seems like I researched that a million years ago, when I was considering reflector plating alternatives for a pair on my '35 Dodge pick-up. John

[Morgan Wright]

This chart shows the reflectivity of different metals over the spectrum. I marked off visible light, with UV to the left of it and IR to the right. I marked the different colors, 400 nanometers is violet and blue, 500 is green, 600 is orange and 700 is red. The chart shows that the most reflective of all metals is gold at 98% but only in the red/orange side, it's a poor reflector at the blue end, which is why gold has a color. Copper is also very high but only on the red side like gold. On the blue end of 400 to 500 you only have aluminum and silver. They are 95% and nothing else even comes close, the next one down is chromium at 65%. That's bad, don't use chrome. Nickel is even worse. Silver and aluminum are above 90% across the whole visible range which is why they are white. Aluminum is at 95% across much of the range but it dips down to below 90% in the red end. Silver is slightly less than aluminum on the blue end but better in the red end at 95%. The human eye is most sensitive to yellow, which is around 580, at that point silver is the best reflector. Overall, I would say silver is the best reflector of the whole visible range with aluminum right behind.

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Morgan Wright (see edit history)

[ply33]

3 hours ago, Morgan Wright said:

This chart shows the reflectivity of different metals over the spectrum. I marked off visible light, with UV to the left of it and IR to the right. I marked the different colors, 400 nanometers is violet and blue, 500 is green, 600 is orange and 700 is red. The chart shows that the most reflective of all metals is gold at 98% but only in the red/orange side, it's a poor reflector at the blue end, which is why gold has a color. Copper is also very high but only on the red side like gold. On the blue end of 400 to 500 you only have aluminum and silver. They are 95% and nothing else even comes close, the next one down is chromium at 65%. That's bad, don't use chrome. Nickel is even worse. Silver and aluminum are above 90% across the whole visible range which is why they are white. Aluminum is at 95% across much of the range but it dips down to below 90% in the red end. Silver is slightly less than aluminum on the blue end but better in the red end at 95%. The human eye is most sensitive to yellow, which is around 580, at that point silver is the best reflector. Overall, I would say silver is the best reflector of the whole visible range with aluminum right behind.

Silver best with aluminum right behind is what my father said too. As he was an astronomer he was pretty familiar with getting the mirrors on the universities telescopes maintained. In the early days they always used silver but by the time he retired they were using aluminum as it was nearly as good and lasted a lot longer (didn’t have to re-silver every year).

 

I had Uvira do my Plymouth’s head light reflectors back in the 1980s and they are still in great shape all these decades later. Aluminum by itself would not last that long but Uvira puts a thin glass coating over the aluminum to keep it from oxidizing.

[Morgan Wright]

Frank Mance Plating is out due to covid, his wife runs it and son Daniel is recovering, no promise of when they can do it. I got a quote from a guy in England for 226 quid which is around $400. Who know what the shipping is.

 

I can get am electroplating rectifier for $160 and the silver solution for these kind of numbers.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184706524621?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A13xoSuAiFT1uvzEdgoobXqA74&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-213727-13078-0&mkcid=2&itemid=184706524621&targetid=4581046489808870&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=418640322&mkgroupid=1239149842233245&rlsatarget=pla-4581046489808870&abcId=9300602&merchantid=51291&msclkid=68a38e2cb45b1897cd14efdca3bd972b

 

Has anybody tried plating before?  I bet it would be hella fun!

[Bloo]

I do my own zinc, but that is possible using harmless stuff out of your kitchen cupboards and an old trim tab off of a boat. A very short list of other metals might be possible with stuff in the kitchen. Not silver.

 

Even though I prefer to do my own work, once you get into the chemicals the pros use I would rather pay someone else. There are only a few jobs on a car I won't go near, but this is one of them. There is no reason you couldn't do it if you really wanted to. Also, there are a gazillion little variable power supplies more or less like that all over ebay and amazon with reviews ranging from excellent to outright crap. Some are linear, some are switching, (internal circuitry) and although it might matter to an electronics experimenter, for plating it should make no difference. You will need the adjustability. Figure out ahead of time how much current you will need, and be sure the supply you buy is big enough.

 

I didn't calculate it, but I think the one in the link is probably big enough several times over. It's front panel markings and power requirements are a bit confusing. The description says 110v (suggesting it runs on normal USA power) but you might want to verify with the seller as the front panel markings seem to contradict that.

 

EDIT: There are other sources in the US for reflector silvering, I just cant vouch because I haven't used them. Steve's Restoration in Oregon is one, although I believe they were more expensive than Mance. There was a table silver restoration outfit out in the midwest who do it as well. There are leads in several old threads. I used Mance after seeing Terry's pictures, but I don't believe they are the only game in town. You probably don't have to post them to the UK.

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by Bloo (see edit history)

[Morgan Wright]

Sent to Dan'l Mance he said $300 and it will be 8-10 weeks turnaround.