removing chrome

[lcowner]

wats best way to get rid of chrome,will vapor/sand blasting get rid of it?

[midlifecrisisrd]

Sept 3, 2010 8:37:46 GMT 1 lcowner said:

wats best way to get rid of chrome,will vapor/sand blasting get rid of it?

Hi, you and me seem to have the same working pattern, or lack of it

Personally I have just got it blasted if powder coating or painting to give it a "key" but if being re plated it has either got to be sanded/polished off or removed by the reverse of plating as in put in a big bath af acid and the current passed the other way.

Steve.

[cj]

Could try mechanical blasting/grinding but obviously degrades the metal, otherwise..

According to some info off the net it depends on what the chrome is sitting on top of and how far you want to strip back, for instance, on a motorbike steel wheel rim..

"The chrome is stripped with hydrochloric acid, and the underlying nickel is stripped with nitric acid. There may be copper underneath that, which probably must be stripped with a proprietary ammonia-based stripper."

There was also this..

"Hi , I know you have probably done this by now but the simplest and safest way of de-chroming anything is to have none conductive bath (i.e. plastic) that will accept your item to be de-chromed , fill to cover with water and throw in a couple of heaped handfuls of ordinary household soda crystals put the item you want de-chromed in this solution with a lead from a battery (6 or 12 volts) positive terminal , attach the negative lead from the battery to an old junk piece of clean metal and put in bath , not touching and leave for a few minutes , this will only remove chrome"

HOWEVER - DANGER Method two above - this process will leave you with a vat full of hexavalent chromium in the solution -- the toxic stuff that made Erin Brokovich famous.

General theory apprears to be let a plating company take the risks and send all your parts off.

[lcowner]

right..........i have a set of allspeeds dat are a bit rough.was gunna strip chrome and fill in dents with weld then paint with heat resistant paint.they shud comr up nice i think .i can get them sand blasted but does it leave a really rough finish that u cud see when i paint them???

[lcowner]

sand afterwards wit what gaz? like a mouse sander? or grinder with sanding disc?is dat pj1 paint good it says its heat resistant up to 700 degrees??
thanx