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I have had success with two methods.

First, a quick background. The chrome plating on part is two layers, the first is a coal of clear lacquer, upon which the vaccum plating is applied.

Typically you will want to strip the chrome, as well as the underlying clear lacquer. Just about any household cleaner will remove the metal plating, but not the undercoat.

both methods I will describe below involve harsh chemical, so use personal protective equipment, such as gloves, and eye protection.

To strip both layers you can use purple degreaser, most commonly sold as "purple power" or "Super Clean". If you only want to strip a small part, like a valve cover, you can pour the purple degreaser in a airbrush bottle. If it is something larger, such as a whole sprue, find a sufficiently large plastic container that you do not intend to use for food again , and pour enough purple degreaser to submerge the parts. The chrome will dissolve fairly quickly, and the undercoat will also start to loosen. Once the undercoat starts to lift, remove the parts and wash with dish soap and scrub with a tooth brush, then rinse thoroughly.

The procedure is similar for Oven cleaner, if you are in the US look for Easy Off oven cleaner in the Yellow can. The fumes are harsh so make sure you do not inhale the fumes. using some kind of sealed container, spray enough oven cleaner to cover the parts, then clean and rinse as described above.

above all else be careful with harsh chemicals!

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Coca cola. Let parts sit in a rubber maid tub of coke over night and it should be gone by morning. I've not tried it but heard it works great. The undercoat isn't an issue as long as you prime the parts or use a base coat of a certain color. Or just sand the chrome off since you usually have to deal with tricky seams anyway.

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I've only ever used household bleach. Far less caustic than some other methods and a lot faster than using Coke. Typical house hold laundry bleach can remove chrome plating in about 15 minutes.

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It's important to remove the clear undercoat; it's quite thick and obscures detail.

Coke works fine on the chrome, but I needed to use Simple Green on the clear.

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