As with a car's paint job, the quality of the product is in the preparation, not the paint. Before you can gain any improvement in appearance from silver, the instrument needs to be perfect. Every ripple, ding, scratch, and so on will become more apparent under silver plating.pierso20 wrote:well, silver plating, believe it or not for my horn *this was a recent quote* was only $500...assuming all other repairs had been previously done....now to me......that is a deal because what separates my horn from some others I see is the cosmetics. Though, obviously since I created this thread, I am not taking this decision lightly. Plus, though I agree raw brass is better than scratched lacquer...I think it's still ugly.
Thanks for imput so far.
The usual process is to 1.) overhaul the instrument to make it perfect, 2.) carefully buff it to a mirror polish, including ragging out all the narrow openings, and so on, 3.) disassembling the bits and providing proper masking, 4.) send it to Anderson for plating (that's the $500 part), 5.) carefully remove the silver from places it doesn't belong, such as in valve casings and tuning slides, 6.) assemble the instrument and deal with any plating-related issues that arose.
Silver over a scratched, dull, and dinged instrument will look worse than raw brass, in my eyes. Of course, everyone has their preference.
The paint for a high-end car paint job may be $800 or $1000, but the preparation, application, and touch-up of that paint job will be more like $5000-10,000.
Rick "who stands by the $2000 minimum estimate for a proper silver-plating job" Denney
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that gives me an idea...why don't I silver plate AND then have gold trim...lol 
