Hard chrome plating is used in the automobile industry quite extensively. Cylinder valves, transmission parts, body part dies and molds, are only a few examples. Most automobile companies that have hard chrome plating shops are using methods that have been obsolete for over 50 years. The same is true for their outside chrome plating shop vendors.
There is a hard chrome plating method that achieves plating rates of .006 (152) per hour with very even, dense and harder deposits. Even deposits mean less grinding time or no grinding after plating at all. What is considered by most chrome platers impossible to plate is easy to do. Holes and slots as small as .040 (1mm) in diameter can be plated using this system.
