Painting over chrome

[zep]

Basically, I have some chrome bumpers that I want to be black. Powder coaters want between $70-90 for each bumper (scuffing, priming, coating, clear) which is not really a bad deal. How ever, I'd like to do this cheaper. Spray-bomb style - for now at least.

What is the best way to get paint to stick to chrome? Is this going to end up pricy enough that I should just go for the coater?

Cheers.

[JoKer]

just rattle can recoat when things get fuzzy?

I tried hand sanding the rims on Revenger but gave up... buffer on a die grinder/drill?

[KKtrips]

My uneducated opinion is to get the chrome stripped or the paint is going to flake something chronic..

a quick search brings up these educated answeres

The chrome is removable relatively quickly (but not without hazard) with muriatic acid. But, such wheels are actually nickel plated and then chrome plated, and most of what you are looking at is actually nickel.

It may be possible to sandblast them, but sandblasting is not good for metal and you'll never get it smooth again. Chemically stripping the nickel requires special chemicals that aren't easily available to or usable by consumers.

I think your best bet is to take the wheels to a plating shop or powder coating shop for stripping the nickel and applying a chromate conversion coating before painting or powder coating.

Powder coaters have told me of their success with a light sandblast that removes the chrome and etches the nickel. It's a fine answer, but not if heavy layers of nickel are peeling. In that case you must chemically remove the nickel and you can't do that yourself, you have to take them to a plating shop because you cannot dissolve nickel into any chemical commonly available to consumers. Oven cleaner may be useful for removing anodizing but not nickel plating. Sorry.

[zep]

Hrm, yes. Cheers KK, that's what I heard. One of the powder coaters said I would have to get them stripped at an electroplater - another just said that they would scuff them up (dependent on the quality of the chrome).

[mikuni]

If the chrome is tidy, just get a can of suitable etch and a can of satin black. It won't last, but thats the beauty of it, you can either keep touching it up or take it off with thinners to have chrome bumpers again if you wanted to.

If the chrome is stuffed, take them to an industrial sand blasters. That should take it off, at least back to a good enough level for painting. The pitted nature of the steel will be good too, it won't matter at all because you are no doubt after a matt/satin finish as apposed to perfectly smooth.

If you get stuck with people to do it, theres a very good sandblaster down here that I could drop them into who will sand and etch them for about $30-40 I reckon. I had an entire diff blasted, etched and painted, and a bonnet blasted and etched for $100+ gst (was a couple of years ago now, but prices shouldn't have gone up much).

[Spencer]

Take them to a chrome plating place they will drop it in acid and bam done.

Its a big effort to blast off chrome

[mikuni]

Take them to a chrome plating place they will drop it in acid and bam done.

Its a big effort to blast off chrome

Agreed, but I think they'll try and charge heaps to dip bumpers due to their length. They'd probably require a big bath or two dips, which usually doubles the price. Last time I had 4 wheels dipped locally it was $100+ gst so I'd imagine something similar, which is most of the way towards the $140 to get them half arse painted anyway.