Verne - went thru this process recently. Mikey M22Mike was a big help. He showed me how to make a simple jig to keep the springs spread for a good plating process. I am still determining my local restoration capabilities (i.e. I don't have media blasting cabinet at present) being new to Dayton. So with that said I paid up more than I wanted to, but I wanted to keep it local. I am VERY pleased with the results. I had my hinges glass bead blasted and then used a local plater to do a dark grey (phosphate in my case) finish. I left my hinges in one piece (except removing springs) and they took the plating very well. Check with your local chroming shops as they may have insight to good platers to give you a gold zinc dichromate finish - this is what I did. They took my hinges (and other hood hardware and fasteners) to a local industrial/military platers. This plating company would not take my project on but would take work from the chroming company.
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Sam... 
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