Thanks for the advice everybody. I've now found a chap locally who's said he can do vacuum plating so I'm going to take the bits down to him and see if he can do anything with them.

I also appreciate the advice Westquay, on the bright nickel plate. I've tried some chrome stick-on strip for the edging and it does look very gaudy.

Thanks again everyone, back to the workshop now.

You will need to tag every part with a hole in the tag so he can wire all the parts for the tank.
Martin

No, YOU polish, they plate! Or, you ask them to polish before plating and pay through the nose for it. I recently had an all brass Albatross silver plated for a trophy and I spent three days polishing it. Worth it though as the final plated job was a stunner.
But the parts cannot be anything but metal. I used to use a guy who did the plating for all the white metal model car kits, but the council shut him down because of his problem dumping chromic acid, used in the process. Choices for real modelmakers are being reduced constantly.
Martin

Yes I agree, the companies doing "plating" [ in any form] are getting less and less, plus the chances of finding one that would accept to do such small "model items" is limited, due to the small sizes and the machine handling capabilities, afterall someone has to actually hand polish at the end of the process and their normal scale machines are not capable of such.

you may well end up with paint, and a decent coating of clear laquer afterwards to build up the sheen.

You won't chrome Perspex and wood, only the brass. I would never use chrome on a model, use bright nickel plate as it looks so much less brash than chrome. I used that each time I scratchbuilt my Rivas, Albatross, Slipper Launch, etc. The Rivas each had 150 separate parts that needed plating. it is getting VERY hard to find these days.
Remake the non metal bits in brass and off you go. it Can be done at home, but you only get a finish as good as the polish you get on the brass, so be warned!