grungerockjeepe
02-23-2007, 10:34 PM
Go to Wal Mart or K Mart and get yourself a 32 oz spray bottle of Mean Green super strength cleaner and degreaser. The bottle is white with green and neon orange graphics, and these 3 kooky monster eyes up top. Also get a cheap pack of kids paint brushes. If you dont have anything set aside to contain this mess, those gladlock containers are cheap. If you buy some of those, you'll have spent about $9.
Take all of your craptastically chromed, or chrome worn parts, especially wheels and soak them in a bath of this stuff full strength for at least 24 hours. I add a little squirt of dish detergent, since it seems to loosen some types of vaccu-chrome also. Take one of your paint brushes and chop the bristles in half, so they'll be nice and stiff for digging out the stubborn stuff. Some of your parts will simply shed its chrome and others will need to be brushed to get them clean, and do this under running water to wash away the soap --BE SURE TO PUT THE STRAINER OR CATCH OVER THE SINK DRAIN!!!!
Out of about 50 wheels, all of them came 100% chrome free. I stripped chrome from some wheels off of a few Matchbox premier cars, and 2 of those were so stubbornly chromed that they only came about 85% clean. Now I can sand all these down with 400 grit, paint them all flat black and then highlight the wheels with either silver or dark grey paint where I want, bringing out all the detail in the wheels and getting a nice custom look. In addition to a batch of the MB wheels, I had a bunch of chrome-worn tyco and lifelike wheels, as well as some JL F&F wheels and some pre-round 2 XT wheels that I plan to replicate the look of the new AW rolling stock.
MUCH easier, less toxic and less messy than the oven cleaner trick and this stuff wont attack the plastic no matter how long you soak them. It works on car bodies too, I stripped 2 Doomsday Duel cars that I repainted and have a formerly heavily chrome-worn Super Van ready to repaint.
Take all of your craptastically chromed, or chrome worn parts, especially wheels and soak them in a bath of this stuff full strength for at least 24 hours. I add a little squirt of dish detergent, since it seems to loosen some types of vaccu-chrome also. Take one of your paint brushes and chop the bristles in half, so they'll be nice and stiff for digging out the stubborn stuff. Some of your parts will simply shed its chrome and others will need to be brushed to get them clean, and do this under running water to wash away the soap --BE SURE TO PUT THE STRAINER OR CATCH OVER THE SINK DRAIN!!!!
Out of about 50 wheels, all of them came 100% chrome free. I stripped chrome from some wheels off of a few Matchbox premier cars, and 2 of those were so stubbornly chromed that they only came about 85% clean. Now I can sand all these down with 400 grit, paint them all flat black and then highlight the wheels with either silver or dark grey paint where I want, bringing out all the detail in the wheels and getting a nice custom look. In addition to a batch of the MB wheels, I had a bunch of chrome-worn tyco and lifelike wheels, as well as some JL F&F wheels and some pre-round 2 XT wheels that I plan to replicate the look of the new AW rolling stock.
MUCH easier, less toxic and less messy than the oven cleaner trick and this stuff wont attack the plastic no matter how long you soak them. It works on car bodies too, I stripped 2 Doomsday Duel cars that I repainted and have a formerly heavily chrome-worn Super Van ready to repaint.