I found a local plating house in Indianapolis, here I live, that does silver cad plating. I had my original fan and pulley replated. Some times you can find NOS fans on eBay that will show the color/finish.
The plated finish is somewhat a dull silver in color, and hard to duplicate with any paint product. The plating “fuses” into the base metal where paint lays on top.
My original pulley had been polished by the previous owner, along with other items unfortunately for "show". You can see the dull plating color in pic “Alt pulley and fan 2”. The new looking pulley is a very nice repro from Heartbeat City, which includes the ribbed circular machine lines line the original.
