1987 Margay Lynx AC

[sam bennett]

Back from powder in about 2- weeks. The matching stand I made from some 1.25" 4130 which I'd been sitting on for years. 


I'm not sure what the color is named, but it's some transparent red over Porsche Silver. In the shade it's pretty mellow, but in the sun it explodes.


In early August I used my week off to get a batch of polishing done for the platers. It took every bit of  8-10 hour days for 6 days. The side nerfs were a challenge due to the sharp crimp bends. Someone thought it would be a good idea to beat the rear bumper off with a hammer.  Just more work...
If you've ever had the displeasure of trying to polish a front bumper it's quite frightening. To make the process more manageable, I remove the vertical teeth, polish everything, re-weld, and touch up polish.  Here is a picture of sometime near the middle of that process.



I believe when it was all said and done I'd sent close to 200 pieces to STL for plating. Somewhere near 100 hours of grinding and polishing. Here are some of them upon return








A rear axle can take between 4-5 hours in prep. Since they come zinc plated and zinc will contaminate the Nickel bath, you have to remove all of the plating before any grinding can begin. I usually blast it all, then take to my makeshift lathe to profile the surface. After that's done I spend the remaining 2 hours polishing.