I have done searches on painting over chrome and what I find is that removing the chrome is best. I just sandblasted some of the frame and I can’t tell if the chrome is coming off?
My first go at painting the steel Coker frame I tried to scuff the chrome and paint over that and the paint doesn’t stick, I should have just sand blasted it first off. So I just blasted it and the chrome looks like it is gone but I don’t know how thick it is? Should it look like flaking paint or is it really thin. I sand blasted the frame and the it looks like bare steel but I didn’t do very much blasting to get it to look like that. I am confused because the 10 coats of paint and primer is taking a lot of blasting to come off and I can see the thickness of the paint but it seems there is no thickness to the chrome finish.
Is the chrome finish really that thin or am I just roughing up the chrome and not taking it off? Advice here would be great, I don’t want to have to do ruin another great paint job because I didn’t get the chrome off this time.
This is going to be a cool custom coker. I was hoping to take it for a spin, but I guess I’ll have to wait to see it with the new paint job.
I haven’t ever painted chrome, but a friend of mine did a while back. He used DuPont Centauri enamel, and baked it on. It was a really nice job, and he had the chrome exposed on the dropouts. Chrome plating on bike frames (and probably unicycles) usually very thin, like in the millionths of an inch. If I remember right the base metal is nickel plated, and the nickel is them chrome plated.
Sorry I don’t have any direct advice for you, but hopefully it’s something.
There are all kinds of methods on the internet for stripping chrome. From using oven cleaner, to using Comet dishwashing cleaner. I don’t know how good they work. What does work is taking the frame to a chrome platting shop and having them strip the chrome off.
That’s true in a way. The shiny silver effect that people refer to as “chrome plating” is actually nickel. The actual layer of chromium on the top is just there to stop the nickel from tarnishing, and is microscopically thin (completely transparent).
The underlying plating is usually thicker though, except on really poor quality stuff - usually copper, then nickel, then chromium I believe.
But as for painting on top of chrome plate, I had my old Nimbus muni frame powder coated on top of lightly sandblasted chrome plate and it was very durable. Powder coat may stick better than normal paint though.
I sand blasted it 3 times to ensure I got down to bare metal, In one strip I saw the goldish color underneith. It then blasted that away and am confident I am down to bare metal!
Primer goes on today and the paint goes on tomorrow, then the next day gets the clear coat. Then several days in the sun to dry…I will post pictures when it is done.
Jerry, we will have to get together and try it out soon.
