So the last 6 months I've been in contact with nearly every chroming supplier in the UK, and I've had some terrible experience and service.
Before I start ranting, here is so positive feedback.
I'm now successfully using
VMC Ltd Vacuum Metalising and Spray Painting Specialist for all my chroming needs. They are the most expensive, but not by much. Their service is amazing! They can turn around pieces within 5-7 days, the results are amazing, but most importantly for me, they know what they are doing, deliver on time and extremely helpful and quick to respond. The first time I used them I was under a lot of pressure because I had been badly let down by another supplier. Over the course of a week I rang VMC 3 times. Each time I spoke to a different person and each individual knew exactly what was going on with my order! This may not sound like a big deal, but when you read on you will see why this mattered to me.
The fisrt company I used was called
Chromespray. My recommendation is that you stay away from this company at all costs!!!
When I first made contact I sent a very detailed email, explaining exactly what i wanted, and included pictures with sizes and dimensions. I was contacted by a guy called Simon, who seemed to be in charge. He called me on the phone, had a big chat, told me the prices (which were very affordable) answered all my questions, and told me that he could have my orders completed with 7-10 working days.
It all sounded good, I sent him a batch and sure enough, within 7-10 days the batch came back to me, and the results were good. Happy with the service, i sent off a 2nd batch and a couple of helmet. This is when the trouble started. I'm not going to get into all the details, because it was quite frustrating, but basically I waited almost 4 months to get the batch and helmets back from him. At one point, it took him over 2 weeks to respond an email and over a dozen phone messages (in that time I had contacted VMC, sent them a batch and received it back)
Whenever he did respond (always by email, despite me calling his office every second day) he would attach pictures of other pieces he was chroming, obviously more important than mine. At one point he completely dismissed what I had wrote in the email and responded simply with 'Its just a bump in the road'
Once I had made contact with VMC and found them to be reliable I stopped chasing Chromespray. I received the batch back after about 6 weeks, it was terrible, full of airbubbles and was completely unusable. About 6 weeks after that I received an email say ' Helmets are now complete, sorry about the delay, staffing problems' There was no bill, no invoice, no instructions on how to make payment. I couldn't believe it!
I had to contact him again to request a bill and even this took another 4 weeks, and was a lot more than he had quoted. I was too fed up to argue and paid it. The chroming wasn't bad, a couple of blemishes, but nothing major. They were shoddily packed, on helmet being placed upside down which caused some warping with had to be bent back out using clamps.
When the bill came, it was from another company, an automotive spray painter, its quite obvious that the chroming is something he does on the side, does not give his full attention to and he does not care about the customer.
Basically, stay away from him.
