When you’re at a car show and you see a beautiful bumper, you tend to call it “chrome.” But what you’re usually seeing isn’t mostly chrome, it’s nickel. Chrome, which we’ll add later, is a brightener and adds a bluish luster, but the nickel underneath is what really counts, which is why we electroplate with nickel not once, but three times. Now that the copper is polished, we start with a “strike” layer of nickel, which is bare and less lustrous but provides a good bonding coat. Next we add a “semi-bright” layer, which isn’t quite a mirror finish. We finish the nickel process with a “bright” layer, which is nickel combined with several organic brighteners; when it emerges from the tank, it has a perfect mirror finish. Now, finally, we’re ready to chrome plate your bumper.