Taking pictures of shiny stuff can drive you mad. I talked once to a guy who did catalog shots for a plumbing company and he said it was just about the hardest thing to do well in the entire world of photography. Best I can recall he used a sort of tent made of thin white cloth that would allow light through, with all the lighting outside it, and just a little slit for the camera to shoot through.
I usually do it in daylight, but out of the sun, on a mottled gray background (an old formica sink cutout) and use a few sheets of white poster board to put a little extra light where it is needed. Another trick is to use a couple umbrella reflectors with the lights pointing up at them. I also sometimes use Krylon Dulling Spray (mainly because I found a couple cans of it at a closeout store) which knocks the shine down a bit so the reflections aren't so distinct.
I ran into a guy who was shooting some old tools at a flea market, for National Geographic, I think. He went the other direction, using a box lined with black velvet he would put shiny things in, to kill all the reflections. And then a woman I knew who used to specialize in photographing crafts had a large platform with a translucent white acrylic top, which she would backlight from below to eliminate all shadows, then use umbrella refectors to light from the top.
One handy trick, in this day of digital cameras, is to hook the camera up to a laptop or larger viewing screen, so you can better compose the picture, and see any odd lighting effects, juxtapostions etc, that won't show up in a little viewfinder.
Like I said, it can drive you crazy!
Oh, that is one gorgeous regulator!
That being said, even with good control of the lighting, sometimes I find it difficult to take really good pictures of very shiny chrome. The chrome can reflect objects and colors that I didn't even notice that were there.
