Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hello All,

Its possibly not news to you guys but I've been out of the restoration game for 20+ years and had not realised that you can re-chrome Mazak castings. I bought my +2 in Feb this year and was unhappy with the condition of the 130/5 badge on the passenger rear wing. I'm proud of the fact that it is a late 5 speeder and wanted to show it off!! Badge was looking like this:



I set about searching and found a company called Chrome Restoration Specialists in Kent, UK. I sent the badge off and it came back three weeks later looking superb. there were a couple of deep pitting marks on the edge, which are now gone, and I have sprayed the area between the letters and the outer edge with Satin Black, the result is as follows:



So, I'm very pleased with the result, it cost around £60 but well worth it for a posh looking badge, hopefully it lasts well.

Regards, Jonathan

That came out really nice. Well worth it and much better than buying today's reproduction stuff.

That’s very nice. I thought that most places just won’t touch old mazak as it just isn’t up to it after all these years

Thanks Both, yes, the place in Kent that I used advertise as specialists with mazak, and it certainly does look to be a good job. Jonathan

For the record , Jonathan, do you fancy mentioning their name?

That looks amazing! Do the rest of your badges look a bit sad next to it now?

Hi Chris, Haha!! Yes, it outshines the other badges for sure!! Although it was the worst by far so I can live with the others for a while. The badge I don't think I can renovate is the RH front one that has the constructors championship details on, I don't think that inlay is available? Cheers, Jonathan

661 wrote:For the record , Jonathan, do you fancy mentioning their name?

Hi Graeme, the company is called 'Chrome Restoration Specialists', they are a division of 'CE Design Ltd' and their website is http://www.chromerestorationspecialist. ... ak-repair/ . They offer a good service in that I posted my badge to them (after e-mailing with pics to get an indicative quote of £48+VAT) and they phone you on receipt of the item to confirm its there, then they give you an idea of time needed. Just about at the point I was thinking to ring and check on progress (3 weeks later) they called me to say it was done, I paid over the phone and it arrived next day by recorded delivery, and was well packed, which is important. So, all good! Hopefully others will have a similar experience.

The trickiest bit of the exercise was spraying the satin black into the area between outside edge and lettering. Masking the outer perimeter was easy, but masking the letters is not, so I armed myself with cotton buds and wiped the majority of the paint off whilst wet (applying thin costs of primer and then satin black), then finished with T-cut when dry. I had lightly rubbed down the chrome with 800 grade paper in between the letters (very carefully!) to provide a key, so on the shiny letters the paint came off fairly easily.

Regards, Jonathan

Thanks.
I had some Sebring mirrors done by a company in Crawley. The outsides are very good but the insides are not. I'm contemplating whether to put up with the small area that would show.

Hi Graeme, Have a look at the website for the guys I used, they have some good techniques for building up badly pitted areas of Mazak, might be worth a try if you have anything else that needs doing.

Regards, Jonathan

Looks amazing! Really worth the cost.