It all depends on how much you value your time.
You can spend 3 hours prepping, plating and polishing a lockdown bar in nickel or you can spend $50 and get it mirror polish chrome plated.
I mainly want to plate stuff under the playfield
in the past I have cleaned parts up, only for them to corrode within a few years
there is also the minor issue of there being no one in Ballarat that does Chroming
there was a guy, but he would take three months to get the job done
I looked in the yellow pages and he was not listed
EDIT
then checked online and found two places that do it
oh well
