Now don't laugh, but I couldn't take the stock look of most e61 machines and had this beast electro-plated with copper and gold (gold didn't cost that much more than brass, and it's very temp stable/food safe)... The old chrome just clashed with the brick wall. The Kony is next!
How did you do this? Did you buy it this way or did you electroplate everything?
Joe
Hey, Joe- yes, I took it completely apart and had all of the cabinet, group, hardware, nuts/bolts all electroplated. There is a company in Tucson that mostly does antique car parts (a bunch of old farts like to chrome plate nearly everything under the hood), and they offer plating in copper, brass, gold and chrome. The hard part was figuring out a way to clear coat the copper, since I wanted the mirror-finished version (copper is very reactive- even if you place a copper sheet outside and put your hand between it and the sun, you'll get a permanent shadow after just a few minutes). Eventually the powder coater (different guy than the electroplating co.) had to bake it in the oven at just a little over 120 deg F. After 3 tries baking at more extreme temps (first was something like 400 deg F) he settled on that 120, buffing out the rainbow hues after each attempt... rather frustrating, and he eventually decided to not charge me. It's turned out well, and rather bomb-proof- no scratches anywhere other than a few on the drip tray, and it's been almost 3 yrs. The gold plating done to the group and hardware sticking out of the front of the machine turned out just awesome, and no clear-coating was required as it's temp-stable and food-safe.