Customs Blacked out customs? yay or nay?

I'm going to disagree with both sides, don't paint or polish. If your painting the car flat black I would scotch brite the chrome. Pretty common with custom bikes and always gives it a basic look for cheap without looking too ratty or too polished on a flat car.

 

I hope I'm not sidetracking this topic, but I think it's been made clear not to paint the chrome. On that note, the previous owner of my car decided to follow every rat rodder stereotype and painted the chrome on my car red. Is there some way to get the paint off and bring it back to chrome again? Or am I screwed?

Side note: I agree with these guys that you shouldn't paint your chrome, but there's a guy in the 52-56 fords social group with a satin black '54 who did his chrome in satin black and it looks mean as hell. So every once in a while it can be cool if done right.

 

Go for it! Sounds like a sweet 80's custom!

 

There was a guy that came to my shop in the '70s. He had a bumper for an F100 he was gonna paint black.
Von Franco was talkin' to the guy, while painting some shirts...He did a coupla swipes across the bumper with the airbrush, laid out a swatch of Porsche silver...then shaded it with his 'magic colors': some black, blue, and white. From 3 feet away, it looked more like chrome than chrome itself!
The guy was talkin' turkey for a few minutes, then left...
Franco said the guy didn't want to pay, but "maybe if you just do the bumper, I can spread the word around..."

I would have let Franco do my F100 bumpers in a flash, it was so trick!
(there are some Pro-Street drag cars with airbrushed fibergl*** bumpers now. They look cool, but not like Von Franco's "Chrome by Airbrush"!)

 

Yeah... no kiddin'!

Scotchbrite? Paint? Let's at least get back into the sixties, okay?

 

If the guy didn't grind down the chrome finish to make the paint stick, you can use some standard paint remover to get the paint off. Then like the HAMBers said: 0000 Steel wool,
available at all hardware stores.
Get ready to WORK, you will have to rub 'til it all shines! Worth it, though...

My F100 needed a chrome bumper, I found one for $40 on Craig's list. Chrome was quite dull, and there was a dent. (right in the frontal face!) I put the bumper in my press, backed up the face with hard wood block, and pushed the ding right out.
Steel wool for about 1 hour and a half...'til my arms ached.
But what a difference! Just don't get tempted to use rough steel wool to 'speed things up'. You will scratch the chrome, just as you will if you use green Scotchbrite!
Restrain self, rub with 0000.

 

Thanks! I'm going to give it a shot

 

As previously stated. 0000 Steel wool and a jar of Mothers metal polish will do wonders, plus it most likely will be cheaper than the "few" cans of primer and paint you would need to do the bumpers.....

 

CHROME or DEchrome......we never painted the stuff. lots ofr cars were dechromed tho'...those '58 Olds must have had 500 lbs of chrome on them
If you truly want a custom think about changing what is there. that's why we used Buick side mldgs on chevys or mercs etc etc....
keep what you like and mold off others maybe later adding some you like from swap meets or wrecking yards.. can always be a work in progress..

 

Painted chrome looks stupid. Always has. Why even bring this up?

 

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

the only route i would even vaguely consider if you want the black chrome is the dupli-color "shadow chrome blackout kit". but if you want a traditional custom, leave the chrome. i can definatly understand the low/no budget deal, but thats how most traditional rods were built in the day anyways. and you never seen them with painted chrome. if your actually goin for the tradtional look, run what you got, put some extra effort in it, and you wont be sorry. otherwise you may be in the wrong venue, maybe check out boyd codington's site, or the Grease movie fan site.

 

Dont do it. I have to agree with the first responses, go with a satin instead of flat and polish up the chrome. You wont be disappointed. Painted chrome looks tacky IMHO.

 

I LOVE painted Chrome!
(ducks for cover)

 

...to me it seems so 1995.....wait 20 years and it will be nostalgic....wait 30 years and it will be the 'new traditional'....

 

How the hell did you do that? I've got a wicked haze on all of my chrome, I buffed it by hand with some polish and it seemed to have made it worse.

Also, what do you guys do about pitting and bubbles on pot metal. I've got a pair of '56 Olds headlight rings like this. Mine had bubbles on the top.

 

Yeah. NO!

 

What an awesome looking car. Way cool. However with that paint scheme, the nice white interior, and tail light treatment, it is screaming for something better than those bumpers....
Also really like your Ford (even with the red wheels ) I have always liked those year Fords.
And don't get me wrong, I am serious about liking your Ford !! Just a little confused on your red wheel comment.
Cheers......

 

A fellow club member owns this sectioned Chevy coupe .....

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A few weeks ago we were both at Wienerschnitzel for our Saturday lunch cruise and were talking about what his car would look like with chrome bumpers. I took the above photo and used my Photoshop software to see .....

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Before I could show him, I received my Rod & Custom that featured Bob K's 52 so I scanned the photo of the front end and pasted the grill to the car .....

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You be the judge.

 

Red wheels ****. That photo I have as my avatar was right after I put the bias-plys on. I hated the look of the stock wheel covers with the wide-white walls. That's why I'm getting a set of lancer caps. Red wheels are okay with red cars. Same with any other wheel color with any other car. However I'm sick of seeing flat black cars with red wheels. I'm not much of a plain wheel guy anyways, I like my wheel covers

 

I'm of a mixed mind on this. I personally am tired of the whole flat black with red wheels thing....It's pretty clich'e any more. On the other hand I'm not of the "All painted bumpers/chrome are automatically bad" mind set. I've seen painted bumpers and/or crome look good...and look horrid. Thinking back to a lot of the early 60s hotrods I remember from back in the day, the 3rd option was more than common...no bumpers at all, or at least no front bumpers.

In the end, it boils down not to what I think...or what anyone else thinks. The only one who needs to be happy with the choice is the person making that choice.

 

Hdbob, every time I see a pic of your Biscayne I like it more and more. My 58 D100 is heading in a slightly similar direction. Selected gloss black trim and wheels, chrome small diameter center caps with a medium plain gray paintjob.

 

Do not go with painted bumpers or grille! Whenever I see one it reminds me of the pro street 90's look. I'm so glad it is gone.

Shine up your chrome the best you can. Try touching up bad spots with chrome spray paint. It helped on the few bad spots I had.

 

As a broke young punk myself, I say don't paint them. I just got myself a tub of Mother's and went to work. Yeah it's pitted, but it shined up pretty damn nice

 

agreed, im in the same boat. use what you got and make the best out of it, thats where the the satifaction comes in

 

I'm not knocking your car, I don't care what you drive, but you need to understand that this is NOT a traditional look, or even traditionally inspired. The HAMB is a traditional hot rod and custom forum. Jus sayin'...

 

thank you ed! wish more people understood that!!!

 

That car is nice but it's not traditional as defined by the HAMB.

I would just put some work into the stock bumpers and then re-chrome some day, I paid $400 each to re-chrome mine.

I understand how the flat black + red wheel look is popular, but I like dark colored wheels with a little bit of chrome which is what I did.

 

Painted bumpers on a truck seems to work, but on an Olds... I haven't seen anyone mention the "Liquid Chrome" option yet. It looks good in pictures but I've had no experience with it. If it's radically cheaper than chrome it might be a way to go.