chrome parts

I ran into that issue when building the Tom Daniel's Red Baron hot rod.  So many of the chromed parts have to be assembled, leaving seams, and of course, there were the sprue gates to deal with.  So I stripped the chromed sprues using SuperClean (an automotive de-greaser, formerly made by Castrol.  Eight bucks a gallon at Walmart).  Then I used Krylon chrome paint on some of the parts, Model Master gloss aluminum on some others, after I had assembled parts in the usual way (like the fuel tank, for example, I glued the two halves together, sanded the seams, then painted it).  You certainly can use Alclad or other metalizers, too, but the thing was to decide from the start not to save the kit chroming, but to replace it.

Thank you for your advice, There are a great deal of diffrent building ideas and knowledge based on expirence with all the diffrent products that are geared towards this hobby. What started out with one model some paint and a tube of glue has turned into a spare bedrome full of models,tools ,paint paint both etc lol, I hope one day my skill level will match my passion! All the knowledge avalabile here is great and very helpfull if not a little over whelming with all the information, I will try and master the Alclad paint system and go from there. Once again Thank you all for your insight and willingness to share your knowledge with me please keep sharing Rory.

Thank you for info.

Just personally, I think Alclad II chrome is the way to go. All I do after stripping off the factory chrome is clean the part up, fill, sand or even fine sand/polish bare styrene, then apply a nice even coat of Enamel Black ( I'm sure Acrylics will do fine as well). Wait untill the black is 3/4 cured, in other words don't let it get fully hard, then apply an even coat of Alclad chrome. I wait about 12 hrs in Summer and no more than 24 hrs in Winter. This way the alclad bonds more to the base coat and is far more durable. 9 out 10 times I just black basecoat and Alclad chrome top coat, not that complicated.

Hope this helps.

RORY ;

 I just guess I am very old school . I use the product " Bare Metal Foil " but I also make my own from super cheap foil and " Micro Foil Adhesive " . I have always had excellent results . I can only airbrush in limited amounts due to both my shop situation and weather . That's the main reason I don't use Alclad .

I don't bother to remove the  old "chrome". I prime with a good metal primer- anything that will stick to aluminum (the metal used to simulate chrome in plastic kits).  I sand and fill any defects, prime, sand and procede to the normal Alclad process.

You can use spaz stix paint also. Applies the same as Alclad but more durable. You can find it on amazon, available  in airbrush form and spray cans

on those big trucks it's always best to clean up all those Chrome parts anyway they seem full of mold lines and flaws. Redoing them with any method gives a better finish than leaving them as is.

Thanks for the info Pawel, 

Thank you, Will give Alclad a shot as my local hobby shop just got there line in as well as model master metal paints, i have heard good things on the Alclad but nothing as if yet on the model master metals?. once again thanks, have photos but can not figure out how to apply them to this site.

Rory - that is a tough question, but there are workarounds. Most of the time the chromed parts of the kits are crap anyway - you clean 'em up, refine them and then you have several choices - you can cover them in Bare Metal Foil (BMF) or some other metalized self adhesive foil. You can use silver paint that can be bought in automotive shops - it gives quite a nice shine. Or you can use paints from Alclad 2 - this is quite nice, but a bit tedious to apply (you need at least three airbrushed coats: black primer, chrome silver and clear). Hope you can find your way out - good luck with your build (pictures!) and have a nice day

Paweł

Alclad Chrome works really good but there are some tricks of the trade to use to get it to look good. Several months ago I stumbled onto an article on the web in regards to this "mysterious" Alclad. Once I found out what it was and read about how to work with it I had to try it out. If you read this article and follow it to the letter you're gonna get some great results.

 Give it a shot there Rory.  Here you go:  http://www.swannysmodels.com/Alclad.html

Rory I don't believe there is any paint that will match factory chrome, not that I've ever found. I tend to strip all chrome off of pasrt like that and recoat with Alclad II Chrome paint. This works best over gloss black paint. Or another technique I use is if it is just a small attachment point you can put a bit of Bare Metal Foil on it and very carefully buff it afterwards.

Hope this helps.

Antwon