I was wondering how much experience you guys have with painting chrome parts, I painted a few of my cars and I have some PPG black left over, I wanted to shoot a set of forks and handlebars to give them that more stealthy look. I was just curious on some prep work that I should do?

Thanks,

Muzz

A nice sand blast. Then repair any damage. Then prime and paint as you would a car. That would be my guess.

I have tried glass bead blasting chrome items and priming and painting. It has never really turned out well for me.
I find that the blasting doesn't totally remove the chroming.
I beleive the onlt way to totally remove chroming is to have it baked first then blasted.
Has anyone tried this at home in the oven? Ha Ha.
I am curious to hear other members input on this.

I can hear my wife now.

A bead blast won't do much to a good plating. A vigorous sand blast will not remove the plating unless it's peeling already but it will rough it up enough for powder coat to grab on to.

I have had numerous plated frames powder coated and none have any peeling problems.

Normally (correct me if I'm wrong) a powder coater bakes your item first.
This helps remove all coatings (chrome, paint or old powder)when blasting.
The guy who does my stuff told me he removes everything before powder is applied.He wouldn't take the risk of applying powder over anything but bare metal.
He did two sets of forks for me which were once chrome. They came out like brand new.

So what your saying Randy is my best route is to have the items powder coated as opposed to just shooting em?? Well can somone give me a price I really wanted to tackle this myself :-( but if I have to I will pay someone to powder coat them at a later time

Thnx,

Muzz

Shooting them = throwing away?

Sure, you bet!

YHM

the places i've seen use aluminum oxide as their media, not sand. even if you blast the chrome off you still have nickel and paint doesn't adheer to it well at all. that's why most places want a bare surface to start with. i could tell you a way to strip the chrome but you would still have the nickel problem. in most cases it's best to let the powder coaters do the blast stripping.

simple,,,take the chrome parts to a chrome shop,
they will reverse the chrome process,,,
wamb you have a new begining....
and after that if you want to powdercoat,,the coater will blast the frame so that the coating will have somthing to bond to..

I'm with tricktracy on this - take your parts to a platers – they can remove the chrome plate – I think this takes the form of an acid etching process ... I've had frames painted that were a) shotblasted chrome (paint eventually fell off) and B) painted after the above process – these frames still look as good as new.

I am having some stuff chromed as we speak and I am sometimes known as a "curious George" and gave them the 20 questions routine... Hey set of early 401s I do not want them messing them up... anyway... they can easily reverse the process with low cost from what I was told... That is what I would do.

Ditto on having them dipped. The guy who does my powdercoating almost creamed me when I brought in a set of chrome forks for him to powder. He beadblasted them and worked them over and the Powdercoating still looked at best ok. He does alot of motorcycle parts and he sends them out to a plater to remove the chrome and get back to the basics. Once I caved and had hime do thath they came out good as new. He warned me that the powder over a beadblasted chrome will fail down the road and start to flake off.

I had my seat post and handlebars on my yellow Quad powdered coated. They were chrome plated and my painter sand blasted the chrome and does it all the time on Harley's. Very well done with no probs. I can't see how anyone could argue that going to a plater and having them dip it to remove the plating. That would definately remove all the plating and it would be ready for paint. I have seen my powder coaters work that has withstood severe conditions on both hard core motorcycles and race cars. Beadblasting will not remove chrome plating. Sand blasting will. My two cents.

removing chrome,,, bead blasting will remove chrome very nice,,if it is cheap chrome job,..
but if it quality chrome you would have to at least sand blast.
but the best way is to , like i said earlyer,,
reverse the chrome..that way you dont have to remove the metal with it ,,ha ha,,,and it will be like new for you to do what ever kind of coating you want.