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Stripping chrome - is that varnish?!


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I'm currently stripping the chrome off the parts from an AMT Burton Batmobile. I soaked the parts in Simple Green, which took the chrome right off, but it looks like there's a hardened, yellowed clear-coat still on the parts. It's a nasty shell, and you need a toothpick or something to get it off. Do they varnish the parts before chroming?  Seriously, this undercoat, plus the chrome makes every part look like a piece of chewed bubble gum. When you strip the chrome off, they're beautiful parts. But does anyone have tips about a "varnish" on the parts?

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I want to recall that yellow-ish undercoat is some kind of lacquer.

I do know that lacquer thinner and model kit plastic do very much not play well together.

 

For a number of years I did far more model trains than aircraft model kits & stripping paint of factory painted model train plastic body shells has been a thing since at least the 1980s & there are several plastic-safe paint strippers marketed in the model railroad world.

Those are what I have used to get chrome and that undercoat off plastic model parts.

Even with that you might still have to pick now gummy coating out of a couple of the interior corners on the parts. 

 

EDIT: and from the 'buried in the reference bookmarks' files, this 11 page chrome stripping conversation running from 2006 to 2013 on a model car forum, quite a number of serviceable household and automotive products are mentioned, as is the lacquer,

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/1527-removing-chrome-plating/#comments

Edited by southwestforests
found the bookmark
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Southwestforests already summed it up perfectly, it is a lacquer undercoat to help the chrome adhere.

 

The AMT  undercoat is very difficult to remove! I have not found a consistent repeatable way to strip it.  Most times I can manage to loosen it by soaking Isopropyl alcohol,  after removing the chrome, but I still need to pick at it with a toothpick.  I usually strip chrome because the part is not chrome on the real car, and it is so thick it obscures details. 

 

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I use oven cleaner. Just finished a bunch of AMT '55 Chevy parts. some were clean and some had yellow lacquer. I just painted over the lacquer, got to paint them anyways. Oven cleaner sprayed on in a zip lock bag, 5 to 10 minutes and they are pretty much done. AMT does take a bit longer sometimes.

 

E Z OFF chrome remover.JPG

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