Reason for removing oob chrome ?

It looks unrealistic and as you point out, difficult to glue properly. I've been happy with the chrome available in rattle cans. For a rig's fuel tanks I would also consider aluminum foil.

1.  OOB Chrome looks unrealistic, being more like a blanket of shiney draped over the part.  This is due to the slow-drying lacquer base with which the parts are coated before being plated.  Often, they are subjected to a second, protective, lacquer coat, which adds to the thickness of the coating.

2.  Chromed parts must be removed from sprues, which leaves scars.  Then, they must (usually) be assembled, which is tough to do without leaving scars.  Its very difficult to effectively touch-up chrome scars.

There are several methods for removing chrome:  Easy-Off™ oven cleaner, Castrol Super-clean™, or just plain household bleach.  Rinse well, regardless of which method you use.

Alclad II comes the closest to replicating a chrome finish.  Alternately, Krylon makes a "Brilliant Silver" rattlecan paint. Being hot-solvent based, both need a primer to protect the plastic parts.  Tamiya has its silver leaf, or, you can use the old fall back, Testors silver.  You can also dissolve Rub-N-Buff silver in lacquer thinner as a poor-man's Spray 'N Plate.  Alclad is essentially bulletproof (except, be careful gluing), and Krylon is pretty tough.  The other methods need very careful handling to avoid dulling the finish.

Basic building technique is to make certain all seams are filled and sealed, all mold lines , knockoutouts and other molding flaws are removed or rectified (and sealed), and that everything is polished to a mirror finish before priming.  All chrome/polished metal finishes work best over a gloss black base.  My personal favorite is Testors (little square bottle) gloss black, which accomplishes both priming and black base tasks.  Whatever you use, the primer itself must be polished to a mirror finish.  Finally, apply the "chrome" finish as smoothly as possible.

Hope these help

Phil

Well, for the un-realistic side of htis purpose, you'll get a healthy debate, because everyone has their own opinions on the realism of OOB chrome.

I personaly am happy with it's appearance, but it makes life easy if it's removed from gluing surfaces (but that's also true for paint, too. plastic cement works best with bare plastic to bare plastic joints/seams)

The only real reason for why I would remove chrome from model car parts would be if I was modeling a junkyard car, since shiny,new chrome on a rusting car in the middle of an over-grown field is completely unrealistic (not to mention, it's distracting) so I remove it in that instance.

If you are going to ruin the chrome anyway (such as in your example with the gas tank cylinders) go ahead and remove it completely.

But, what I just said is my own personal opinion, and everyone will think differently. (Oh, man. Now this will keep me up all night, thinking about if that chrome looks good or not)

I sometimes spray chrome pieces with Testors Dullcoat.  It does a fair job simulating aluminum, especially cast aluminum.

If I DO paint it, unlike my friends, I don't strip the chrome. I use Krylon primer and it seems to have enough tooth that it adheres to chrome well enough.  After priming and then sanding, I apply the color.

I like Alclad for its several versions of aluminum finish- standard, polished aluminum, white aluminum.

I whish I knew about painting chrome with Krylon primer. It could have (and now will) save me agonizing  over-night waits for bleach to strip the chrome off.

 Thank's for the tip. I'm going to use it as much as I can now.

I'm building the old Tom Daniel's Red Baron hot rod by Monogram, and I'm stripping the chrome, because I've decided that the scars at the sprue attachment points, and the seams on some of the components like the fuel tank, have to be addressed.  And correcting those items can't be done without removing the original chroming.

I don't mind the look of the kit chroming, but I do agree with those who've said that the chroming just doesn't look like the real thing in 1:1 scale.  If the little flaws that I mentioned in the Red Baron kit didn't bother me, I'd leave the plating as is.

AMS is a terrible thing...

Thanks for the responses. I have many times used "Easy Off" to remove paint. It works quite well in a short time.

I'm afraid that priming over already thick factory chrome will add unwanted thickness even after sanding the seams and making them disappear.

Also for Tenax to work (as stated) the joints must be styrene to styrene.

Alclad is the best no doubt,  but unless I'm building a museum piece, (possibly the Revell Germany B-36) which could greatly benefit from it..... I'm not going to pay the high price.

Easy off it is....and Testor's chrome at least for these two Trucks.

Dude, where do you live? 31 bucks for a bottle of alclad? 6 buck, 7 bucks, maybe 8, but not 31. I truly think that if you strip the original chrome, build your parts and correct the seams then shoot with alclad chrome you will be very pleased. There is a special way to do it and any imperfections will show if you do not prep the parts right, but it is well worth the effort. You can search the forums here and get plenty of info on using alclad, or go to www.swannysmodels.com and go to the tools and tips tab, look for The Secret Life of Alclad, there you will find instruction on how to apply alclad.  As said before, the chrome plating process is very thick and sometimes hides the detail that is molded into the parts, causing them to end up with a toy like appearance. The alclad is very thin and will not hide these details. Do your research and good luck with your project.     Ken                                                         

the Baron

I'm building the old Tom Daniel's Red Baron hot rod by Monogram, and I'm stripping the chrome, because I've decided that the scars at the sprue attachment points, and the seams on some of the components like the fuel tank, have to be addressed.  And correcting those items can't be done without removing the original chroming.

It sometimes takes two coats of prime, but the flash is easily removed during the priming and sanding. If the sprue attachment will take putty to fix, then I do scrape back the chrome a bit for better adhesion of the putty, but the primer and paint sticks well to the rest.

I scrape away flash and mold lines before priming. One coat of prime shows if there is a "step" where the chrome is scraped away. A second coat usually fills in that step.  After sanding second coat, I apply gloss black, then alclad.

Don Stauffer

the Baron:

I'm building the old Tom Daniel's Red Baron hot rod by Monogram, and I'm stripping the chrome, because I've decided that the scars at the sprue attachment points, and the seams on some of the components like the fuel tank, have to be addressed.  And correcting those items can't be done without removing the original chroming.

 

It sometimes takes two coats of prime, but the flash is easily removed during the priming and sanding. If the sprue attachment will take putty to fix, then I do scrape back the chrome a bit for better adhesion of the putty, but the primer and paint sticks well to the rest.

I scrape away flash and mold lines before priming. One coat of prime shows if there is a "step" where the chrome is scraped away. A second coat usually fills in that step.  After sanding second coat, I apply gloss black, then alclad.

Thanks for the tip, Don!

That's why I decided that I'll have to remove the chrome, the factory chroming won't survive the normal build process, and I really want a uniform finish.  Apart from the sprue gates and seams on chromed parts, the helmet has some fine scratches on the outside, on top, right where everyone can see them.  Consequences of packing all of the sprues in one bag.

Easy-Off is what I use to strip, it does a great job, and quickly, too.  I haven't decided on the paint to use to replace the chrome, but there's time to think about it.

Gotta choose the right shade of red, too...

I'm in Massachusetts. My LHS is the Spare Time Shop (GREAT STORE BUT INSANELY HIGH BEYOND FULL RETAIL PRICES) and he has the large bottles of alclad for $31. He also has the AMT White Freightliner for $49 when I just paid $25.  One reason I can no longer buy anything except from  web retailers and why soon brick and mortar hobby shops will no longer exist.

I generally only buy paint and supplies at the LHS, but even that is changing now.

I'll check the Alclad prices online......THANKS GUYS

I got 2 bottles of alclad from Squadron for around $7 each.

Another thing to consider is this.Most semis don't have chrome tanks on them.We have 5 semis on the farm and 4 have black tanks and 1 is silver.Just something to think about.