Lets say that you spent months engraving a fire arm and you did almost 90 % coverage, this gun is nickel plated so before you engrave it you must strip off the old finish, after engraving it you send it to a plater who says that they are experenced in plating fire arms ,you then waite 2 month to get the gun back , when you do you open the box un wrap the parts and then you go into shock , looking at the part you see that all of the engraving is destrayed all of your work is gone it takes 2 days for you to come out of shock ,you then call the plater and tell them what happened ,they say no way send pictures after 2 week you get an e-mail from them saying that they know what went wrong ,you ask how are they going pay you for the reengraving .they say that they cannot afford to do that now you are stuck with doing the entire job over for nothing .. my question is , what would you do .. i would like to hear what any one else would do.. this just happened to me .. thanks ron

Ron Nott
10/7/2005 11:56:28 AM

Ron,
Did the plater put too much nickel on or did they polish the engraving off? If they just put too much nickel on it, you may be able to have it stripped and do some touch up work. The plater should definately pay though.

Good luck and let us know what happens.
David

David Clevinger
10/7/2005 12:54:48 PM

Hi David .. No they didnt put too much nickel on it i guess they polished it too much . now i did enclose a message telling them not to polish it because i do all of my guns before i send them out for bluing or plating . as for paying for it they said that they cant afford it .. ron

Ron Nott
10/7/2005 8:25:32 PM

Hi Ron
I remember you asking me about this a few weeks ago. They are being totally irresponsible on their part and I suppose they are counting on you realizing it would be too time consuming and costly for you to sue them for damages. So basically you are screwed. I do think it would be appropriate for you to list their name here so no other FEGA member gets the shaft like you did from these people.

Martin Rabeno
10/8/2005 9:10:06 AM

hi marty .. thanks for your coments . i would like to post there name i also would like to tell all of the fega members who they are but i dont know if i can . i will say that they are oyt of florida

Ron Nott
10/8/2005 1:21:46 PM

Hello Ron;

It sounds like a bad situation, Most states have free leagal advise through the Bar assoc. or the state government. and if I were you, I would get some. If you can not afford to sue them post there name in as many places as possible, If the work is done in the manner you discribed, you can not be liable for the truth, heck if you are they have to disclose in public the fact their work was substandard and why it is not there rosposibility to pay you back. I wish I could tell the electric company I can't afford to pay and keep getting electric. Don't give up and post the companies name.

Tad Coffen
10/8/2005 5:56:05 PM

Thanks Tad .. and every else for your coments . I will try to post some photos of the damage .. ron

Ron Nott
10/8/2005 9:45:41 PM

Ron,
I went to a local gun show yesterday and talked to a gentleman about plating he referred me to Jim Alaimo of nutmegsports.com.
You might want to contact Jim. He is an engraver and was a former employee at the Colt Custom Shop. Also you may want to contact the Better Business Bureau in Florida to get after these people who plated your gun, and I believe FEGA has a member by the name of Joe Clayton who I think is a lawyer...maybe we can get some free advice for you. Please post the name of the company you used to save us members a lot of grief.

Yours truly...JJ Roberts

JJ Roberts
10/9/2005 8:11:44 AM

Ron,
I went through a similar thing twice. I asked for a french grey finish and what I got was a bead blast. That is a quick way to ruin engraving. The first case was with my own rifle. I ordered a sharps from Shiloh Sharps with the uderstanding that I would receive it in the white, engrave it and then send it back to them to french grey. The owner of Shiloh did admit what had happened when I called him. I wrote and asked for them to buy the gun back. They refused. At some point in time I got a very nasty letter from their lawyer saying that I was not to have any contact with Shiloh. Also stating that I was very poor engraver. I filed suit in Wyo. But found out that I would have to go to Montana and file suit. Needless to say I did not have the money for that. The other case involved a customer's gun. This was a Ballard. The company is in Cody. I took the customers gun to Cody and told them what the customer wanted and what not to do. But they went ahead and used a bead blaster on it any way. This one turned out better. I told the customer what happend and I tried to fix the engraving the best I could. The customer complained to Ballard. The owner of Ballard found out who was resposible for the screw up and did pay me for my time. The guy who used the bead blaster at Ballard is no longer there. I do not think that this was the reason that he is gone but maybe a contributing factor.

Best of luck to you Ron.

Jim

Jim Blair
10/10/2005 4:48:47 PM

Thanks jj. I do know Jim and I know what he does I though he only silver plated guns and i dont think he does it . Hi Jim . thanks for your input . I feel that people like us have no recorse when some body else screws up, only the small guy pays and it is scarry what do you do , every time you send a gun out for refinishing you take a big gamble . I think this forum should have a bad guys list , ron

Ron Nott
10/10/2005 9:07:50 PM

Hi, I have found the best when returning a soft gun in the white to factory for hardening after engraving is to agree that it will be harden but not finished. Blue if they must but no polishing ect. Tell them that you will take care of any hardening blemishes. I think the bead blasting can get too heavy to clean up everything. When you get it back you can use super fine abrasives with low air presure to clean it up. And protect your engraving by covering it up if need be. Hope this helps. Mark

Mark Hoechst
2/12/2006 11:15:20 PM

hi mark .. thanks for that info .. i did send the gun out some time ago to a plater in the pittsburgh pa area and he cleaned up the mistakes of the plater in florida . he did a great job for me and i will send him more work ..the plater in florida ( fords) didn't even reimburse me for the cost of engraving the gun .. Ron

Ron Nott
2/13/2006 9:01:26 AM

Ron,
I live in Miami Florida, if I can be of any assistance, please let me know.
I have an attorney that might write a letter or something, the attorney is not for my engraving work, but I can talk to him.
Also having someone in the state file a complaint on your behalf with the BBB might get some action. And if the plater is licensed with the State, there might be some method to file a complaint there.
Let me know.
Tim Clark
metalchipper@aol.com

Timothy Clark
3/5/2006 8:02:25 AM

KEEP DIGITAL FOTO RECORDS, COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE, MAKE FRIENDS WITH A LAWYER !

J.D. SWARTZFEGER
3/10/2006 12:59:48 AM

hi Tim and thanks for the info .. i was going to get an attorney but i figure that the people who own the plating co could not afford to pay the fines and then i am stuck with all the expense . they did tell me that they are a small co and that they didn't have any liability insurance and they could not afford to pay me to reengrave the colt the co. is fords plating in florida ..

Ron Nott
3/10/2006 9:19:26 PM

Hi Ron,
I understand and if they are that bad off, and hanging on by a thread, no one wants to drive them out of business.
However, someone should check them out to see if they really don't have insurance, and things are that bad.
If the owner just bought a million dollar home, then whether they have insurance or not doesn't really apply.
Unfortunatly, people do this kind of thing all the time.
I seem to remember that someone else had a problem with Ford Plater's about a year ago, I don't know if it was on this forum or one of the knife forums, but the problem was the same kind of thing. I remember the name because a friend of mine has the same name.
I seem to remember that they polished the engraving and they also didn't have two penny's to put together then either.
But I also seem to remember that they settled with the engraver with a partial payment.
I'm just saying you might want to check them out further since you have a note and all, they really should have caught it, and since they had this same problem before. Really !!!!
Maybe they need to go out of business...
Anyway, if I can help, just let me know.
Tim


Timothy Clark
3/12/2006 9:20:40 PM

Ron,

One thing that I think would help is a letter from the Guild saying that since their company has a continueing problem with engraved work. They are given a chance to make it right, or the Guild will advise it's memebers not to use Ford's Platers.

With the prospect of loosing all the Guilds business, maybe they will find some money to fix the mistake.

I don't know what the policy of the Guild is with this kind of thing, but the power the Guild has, is in it's members and their purchasing power.
Just a thought...
Tim

Timothy Clark
3/13/2006 7:53:33 AM