Need help with metal finishing ideas?

Aluminum or steel

just use aluminum it's light and dosen't rust...and you can polish it insteand of chrome it

I'll second for aluminum or steel... If its pure steel make sure theres a protective coating over it or else it'll rust. I'd just use aluminum myself but steel looks nice too.

If you are going to chrome it, use copper.

When they do chrome, they polish your part, then copper plate it, then polish, then nickel plate, then polish, then chrome, then polish and clean it off. If you start with copper, they can skip a step and you might save some money.

I'm not sure about black chrome, so call your local plating shop.

Powder coat sticks pretty well on any metal, so if you go that route, aluminum or steel would be a good choice.

My personal favorite is stainless steel (alloy 304 or 316). It isn't that hard to machine if you know what you are doing, it is stronger and more scratch resistant than aluminum and it will polish up nicely.

Stainless can be machined with plain tool steel bits. The tricky part is that most grades of stainless will work harden. This means that if you use a dull drill, it will heat up the stainless which will work harden it, then the stainless will be harder than the drill and the drill will get more dull. Since the drill got dull, you either sharpen the drill or get a new one, but the stainless where you are drilling is still just as hard and ruins the drill again.

The solution is to use plenty of coolant, sharp bits and low rpm. If you can keep that in mind it isn't too bad.

Aluminum will corode, actually all aluminum is coroded. Aluminum forms an oxide on it's surface when it is exposed to air, luckily it looks pretty nice. The best way to protect it would be anodizing. This creates a stronger surface oxide sometimes with a dye. A clear coat may help, but I would not bother unless you are driving on salted roads, or live next to a beach.