What is the process for creating plastic finishes in textured black,
textured silver, and chrome styles?

If the process is mechanical, then references to common polishing
materials or metal mold finishing techniques would be appropriate.  If
the process is chemical, then common etching solutions,
concentrations, bath times, number of coatings, temperatures, etc.
would be needed.

Other useful info may include anything about popular makers of
manufacturing tools that help to complete the task, and common
problems encountered in the process (such as bubbling, color
inconsistency, burning, uneven finishes, drip marks, etc.).

The three styles I'm referring to can be found in most consumer
electronics products created in the past two years.  one example of
smooth chrome with textured silver is on the front bezel of the Antec
P160 computer case.  Several pictures are available in this PDF file:
http://www.antec.com/pdf/flyers/P160.pdf  Note that while the case
pictured is mostly aluminum, the front is all plastic.  An example of
textured black with textured silver is the Microsoft Wireless Optical
Desktop Pro 2.0 (picture available at
http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/23-109-127-07.JPG).

The answer may consist of reference links and/or a compiled answer.

I'm not looking for details on the entire process of creating a
plastic product, such as general mold design, stress considerations,
volume optimization, etc.  I'm interested only in the techniques
needed for the finishes mentioned above.

To help with the direction of the answer, the background is this: I'm
considering design materials for a retail electronics product.  Since
this process could be used for a variety of other future products, it
would be worthwhile to gain experience even if it's inefficient on a
small scale.  Because of the huge array of available products with
these types of finishes, I'm guessing that the process isn't overly
difficult nor expensive.  This posted question is an effort to
discover whether that guess is correct.

I'm not in a hurry for the answer.  Feel free to take your time.  Thanks.

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Clarification of Question by fungicord-ga on 30 Jan 2005 21:16 PST

I understand that black plastic isn't special or new.  It's really the
mildly rough-textured finish of the plastic that interests me.  Also,
it appears that the textured silver is the same material as chrome.  I
think this because I've seen what appears to be a single piece of
textured silver plastic that has smooth chrome symbols recessed into
it.  But I have also seen chromed plastic that appears to have been
dipped for its finish.  Are there metallic-style plastic pellets
available that would serve my purpose?

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Clarification of Question by fungicord-ga on 04 Feb 2005 22:08 PST

I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about any silver metal or
chromium alloys.  These are inexpensive coatings that give the product
a pseudo-metallic appearance.  For example, Mattel's Hot Wheels toy
cars have used "chrome" finishes on the wheels for decades.