I bought a set of Cragar "racer" wheels of craigslist that were mislabeled as SS wheels. These are Cragar's copy of the Tri-rib Radir. It looks as though the PO never ever cleaned them and they have some serious salt damage. They polish up well enough for a driver, but I was wondering what it would take to get the chrome off and just polish the lip and leave the centers rough. I don't really have anything to put 'em on, just tought they were cool, and were pretty cheap. Has anybody done this sorta thing?
Blasting the chrome off would be a major job. I've had a few instances where I needed to blast a little chrome off some part in repairing it in my machine shop, and the stuff doesn't give up easy at all. Based on the small areas I've had to do, I'd say you could easily spend 12 to 16 hours on each wheel in a blast cabinet. One big problem with blasting chrome, in addition to the fact that it takes forever, is that its real difficult to tell when you're thru the chrome. The plating takes on a matte silver color as soon as the grit hits it, and past that about the only change you see is when sparks stop coming off the surface as you blast it. A friend of mine bought a set of sorta rusty Tru Spoke wires and took them to a plater who was able to remove the chrome and underlying plating by reversing the plating process. He wasn't interested in having them rechromed, and had them powder coated once the chrome was off. Don't recall him saying how much it cost, but most any plater should be able to give you a price. For something like this, you wouldn't have to necessarily use a shop that does decorative chrome work. An industrial plater would be able to do the same thing, and my friend's wires were done by an industrial plater.
Thats how ya do it... Used to get the chrome off of motorcycle frames this way. Always sent them to some shop in Garland, its been years since Ive been over that way.
I sandblasted the late F150 wheels I have on my 52 F1....shot them with aluminum paint from a rattle can...three years later they still look great.
A chrome shop will electro-strip them. Won't be all that expensive either. Sandblasting chrome on top of aluminum is risky since the aluminum is so much softer than the chrome, if you open up a blister or an edge in the plating, the sand will dig a pit in that area before the chrome surrounding it will come off. You'll end up with wavy wheels. Not a good idea if you are going to polish them or leave them rough-cast looking.
Bump. I too have some rusty Cragars. The steel rims aren't too bad, I would just like to get the chrome off the aluminum spokes. Tried blasting, sanding. So can I chemically strip them with a battery charger, anode and electrolyte solution?
One problem you'll have if the wheels are composite (steel and aluminum) is the chrome stripping solution for aluminum base metal EATS steel. Had some steel bushings in a casting disappear after a trip through the stripping tank... If you have the patience, masking any areas you want to save (and I don't mean masking tape; I'm talking about a wood or metal mask that will take heavy blasting) then blasting with COARSE sand at high pressure will shatter the brittle chrome and you can pick the broken plating off if it doesn't fully remove it. Generally, far more trouble than it's worth....
The best way is to drop them at a plating shop and have them stripped. It cost me $20.00 a wheel. Blasting can cause trouble as soon as the soft aluminum gets exposed next to the harder chrome. The aluminum leaves the wheel at those parts while the chrome is still shines, your left with low spots and 4x the work. Then I sent them to the polisher, now that part was not cheap but they are Sooooo darn gorgeous.
Well I have been working on them with a scraper, wire brush etc. My plan is to make them look something like the Torque Thrusts I have on the front (they never made a 14x10 TT that I can find). So I am going to paint the spokes with wrinkle paint which should hide the mess, then paint them grey and silver for the rim. Probly look like shit.
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