Slowly making a start on my new hz xx7 project

[Innuendo]

I've been in the plating industry and sure you can plate the wheel in one piece you can use speciality mops and pay for the extra polishing hours. Or pull it apart, polish it, weld it back together and then plate it as a whole. But you will miss out on polishing the copper (as if it was ever going to happen these days anyway!). The real reason is that you can buy chrome outers for a lot less than chroming a secondhand rim by quite a lot.

Think about it like this. You can paint and prepare a door jamb and hinges on a car or you can take it apart by removing the door and hinges to get the required finish.