I have 4 of the 67 long arm rest bases. 1 is pretty good, 2 have cracks and 1 is broken. I intend to have them re-plated, vacuum metalized, and after talking to the guy, he said I need to strip off the existing plating. So these are plastic and I don't want to melt anything. Will oven cleaner strip the finish? Is there something else I can use to get these down to bare plastic. Once I get them cleaned off, then I can primer and smooth them out and he will plate right over the primer.
^^^ Gotcha. Some plastics were tri-plated, but I have never messed with the '67 bases, so I wasn't sure.
They're probably aluminum plated+ a protective top coat. That's what most of the 'mirror' coatings are for optics. Silver was done in the older days, it didn't hold up as well, it would tarnish. There are acids which will remove the coating, I don't recall which type. Jack, '65softtop4' would know. His place offers a rechrome service. I believe his place does the prep, then they get sent elsewhere for the 'plating'. I'd be concerned about sanding/scratching the original surface. Did your guy say a sanded finish is plate-able? He probably applies a base coat, i don't know how well that fills imperfections. I was in the optics coating field for a few decades. I'm familiar with the coating process but not the prep for auto parts.
The guy said it didn't matter, just so long as it was smooth as glass. I asked if high build primer and he said just make it smooth. I dunno.
He said send it to him polished with at minimum 2000 paper. Urethane high build primer. He said he won't do anything but clean and run thru. I asked about cracks etc and he pretty much told me to fix em and smooth em out.
Hydrochloric Acid / Muriatic Acid is what you need to strip the chrome off plastic. I did this to a number of 70 Buick parts some 20 plus years ago. I don't remember where I got the stuff back then. Maybe a local chemical company possibly. Then sent the parts off to California to have them replated to Perfection Dash & Chrome who did a pristine job of restoring ... I believe the owner died and I think their long gone now.
Muriatic acid is very commonly used and can be found at a lot of different stores. Every home improvement store stocks it. Keith
