Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Hi Everyone!
I'm fixing up an R60 and I'm not sure what to do about the carb air tubes.
Mine are in rough but salvageable condition. Lots of surface rust and pitting, but nothing beyond surface rust. The options I'm considering are:
* Replace with stainless. This would be my preferred choice. I'm not overly concerned with 100% originality and it would be nice not to have to worry about rust again. But I can't find any. Really, it seems like R60 air tubes are hard to find in general. I found some stainless R50 tubes on ebay (https://www.ebay.com/i/303529400549). From the photo they look the same as R60 tubes, but BMW says it's a different part number. Anybody know if those will work? Or does anybody know a source for stainless R60 tubes?
* I've already sanded and polished one of my existing air tubes to the point where it looks like chrome. I'm totally happy with how it looks if I can get it to stay like that. I'm wondering if I could just protect it from rusting somehow. Oil it periodically? Clear coat it? I thought about nickel plating it myself, but some of what I've been reading indicates a home plating job can actually lead to more rust than just leaving it bare. Thoughts?
* Obviously, there's always just rechroming. I know that's the clear choice for most people. But it's my least favorite choice. Primarily because of the cost, but also because I try to do absolutely as much of the work on my projects as I can by myself. Yes, I know buying the stainless tubes would likely be more expensive than chroming my existing ones, and it's still, sort of, outsourcing the work. But for some reason, paying someone to chrome my tubes feels more wrong than buying new ones. Hey, I never claimed to be rational.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Vech shows air tubes on his website. Runs about $200 or more each. Actually, I'm not sure about the R60...he shows R50 and R50/2 and then shows R69-R69S. So maybe nothing for the R60? Might be worth a call.

Go for it.
A normal chrome plating job consists of a copper base coat, polished to desired shine, a nickel middle coat to seal the copper, and a chrome flash to make it all shine.
If the under two coats are not done correctly, there are hairline cracks that allow moisture to get to the parent metal.
There are companies that sell plating kits, but the cost will be close to what you could have a pro do it for.
The internet can give you plating bath formulas and procedures, if you are a real DIYer.
And if it does start rusting, you can do it again and do a better job.
And I think that there is a clear coat powder for powder coating. And that can be done on an oven. Habba Fleight used to sell a gun for applying the powder. #94244, 42802 https://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi ... 94244.html
Here again, you pay to play. But you then have the ability to do other powder coating.

CZ

I had the rusty original tubes for my R69S rechromed thirty years ago and they still look good. In fact, the re-chrome has lasted longer than the original.

You could have them ceramic coated in Chromex. It's not quite chrome, but looks good, is inexpensive and is very durable. I had an R60 set rechromed a couple of years ago, along with several other parts, but thinking they were $200-$300.

Dave

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I think I'm going to have them chromed. I found a place that will do them for $75 each. I was hoping to find something I could do myself, but I guess there's no point in being stupidly stubborn about that. Rechroming really is the best solution.
-Jon

That seems high. I had my tubes beautifully rechromed both together for $40. I would shop around.

Unless it's your buddy, you'll never get a quality chrome job on these for $40. Big difference in the quality of chrome.

Dave

90% of the cost is stripping and prep.

Up to you of course but there are some things that may be worth paying for. When I was restoring my 1969 /2 I spoke to Vech who said "don't bother with new replacements, re-chrome what you have, better overall quality". So sent them off for platting to "Paul's Chrome" in PA and they are great. Ten years later the finish looks brand new. Something to be said for paying a little more upfront and not having to revisit the work. As you pointed out, it's up to you. My way was not the right-way, just a way.