Will Purple Power Or Something Else Remove Car Chrome?

[oldcarfan]

I use Purple Power to remove paint and chrome on my models, but I have a 1:1 stripping issue that maybe someone has faced. My car's grill's chrome is bubbling up and I've been thinking of painting the whole thing black. Does anyone know if there is something strong enough to strip this chrome off without damaging the plastic?

[Ace-Garageguy]

While interior chrome on cars is sometimes the vacuum-aluminum-vapor-metalized stuff model cars employ...and Purple Power or oven cleaner will strip it...the stuff on exterior plastic parts is an entirely different animal.

EDIT: I've used both these methods...and if you use the heat gun, I recommend an X-Acto chisel-tip

               https://www.amazon.com/xacto-chisel-blade/s?k=xacto+chisel+blade

Try this: sodium hypochlorite

 

Or this: a heat gun

 

More heat gun:

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[Oldriginal86]

The chrome plating process on 1:1 vehicles is an electroplating. To successfully remove it, the process needs to be reversed. If the grill is some type of plastic, I’m not sure. I have sand blasted a set of chrome plated headers and painted them with varying degree of paint adhesion.

[Force]

If it's plated plastic like on many modern cars it might, otherwise no it woun't touch it other than make it cleaner.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Force

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 9/22/2023 at 10:51 PM, oldcarfan said:

I use Purple Power to remove paint and chrome on my models, but I have a 1:1 stripping issue that maybe someone has faced. My car's grill's chrome is bubbling up and I've been thinking of painting the whole thing black. Does anyone know if there is something strong enough to strip this chrome off without damaging the plastic?

Expand  

See my post above  ^^^ 

[peteski]

Chromed plastic car parts are electroplated using methods similar to chrome plating metal.  First plastic is coated with electrically conductive lacquer, then it is copper plated, then finally with Chromium.  There might also be another metal used between copper and chromium. Except for the conductive lacquer step, this is the same process using for metal  parts. Chromium is a very though metal resistant to strong chemicals. I doubt that purple power (or any Lye-based products) will have any effect on it.

Model car parts aren't actually chrome plated by vacuum-metalized using very thin layer of aluminum.  Aluminum is a soft metal which Lye-based products can easily dissolve.  However some diecast models, and few kits (made by Trumpeter) for their plastic chromed parts uses a similar electroplating process used for real cars. Those were pretty much impossible to strip using any chemical methods used for other typical vacuum-metalized "chrome" kit parts.

[espo]

Since this seems to have to do with a 1:1 car with a plastic? grill and the chrome plating coming off. My own experience with a similar problem I suggest you avoid any type of sand blasting as the plastic grill will not have a smooth surface after the sand blasting. 

[stitchdup]

I wouldn't worry about stripping the chrome before painting. its pretty tough stuff so i would just get it as flat as i could with varying grades of sand paper, then use etch primer and filler primer and do any needed filling after that. The plastic chrome on car exteriors is a lot tougher than model chrome so just use it as your base and work from there. Treat it as if you are painting a plastic bumper and you'll be fine.

[my66s55]

I've used bleach.