What is the best way to strip a chrome bumper? I want to do as much prep work as I can on my bumpers before I send them to be rechromed.
Don't waste your time trying to strip the chrome. The best way to get it done is exactly the way the chrome guy is going to do it-- he's going to dip the part in a chrome stripping tank. If the chrome is good, sand blasting, etc is a major wasted effort, a chroming is a chemical bond process and wicked chemicals is the only good way to remove, in my experience. -scott noteboom
Take to the crome shop and have them reverse the process, a friend of mine did this and it worked good.
If you try to grind it off, you're going to imbed little bits of chrome into the base metal (steel) which will produce a poor quality replate job, if the shop will even do it, and sandblasting isn't going to take it off. Trust me, the best thing to do is to bring your bumper in just the way you took it off, and have them do it. You will NOT save any money by trying to do anything yourself, you'll only make it worse. No plating shops want you to start the prep work, as it takes a lot of skill, expensive equipment, and experience to do it right. If the bumper has paint on it, use some paint stripper and clean that off first, as it has to be cleaned off well before it can go in the strip tank. That's the only prep that you can do that will help more than hinder. Beyond that, doing anything yourself will only increase the price.
What terra said...... Plating is an electro-chemical process, and de-plating is also. Take it to the platers.
Any chrome shop that handles bumpers can strip it. Probably charge you $25 If you can prep for paint, you can prep for chrome. Once it's stripped, sandblast it, because after stripping the oxidization will come on fast. Sand it with a D/A, jitterbug, belts or buffs from at least 120 grit, through to 240 grit. Basically if you can see a mark after 120 you will see it all the way thtrough, so you decide if this is something you have to solder or you can work out, but a small scratch or scar needs to be blended out over a wide area or you'll have wrinkles. Then solder with silver solder any holes or scratches that aren't going to come out. I like to buff 320, 400, 500 then 600 for bumpers. You can do that with a buff or diegrinder and 4 inch wheel. Make each cut cross the previous at 90 degrees. so you can see the scratch is removed. If you want heavy nickel go through to 1000 grit and then color buff it, If you want the shop to triple plate it, stop at 600 and take it to them. Oil it lightly each night so corrosion doesn't set in. Remove the oil before you work on it with alcohol, acetone or thinner. If you leave dinks and divots in it, that's what you'll get back, exaggerated. Chroming magnifies the faults. But a plating job will be happy to plate a piece without prepping it, if your prep is good enough. They won't like it if it isn't.
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