Thought I’d generate a new post for this one to get it out there, so to speak. A few days ago I had to strip some chrome parts so I borrowed my wife’s bottle of bleach from on top of the washer. The parts sat in it for over two days and her bleach didn’t touch the chrome hardly at all. I pulled the parts out and rinsed them off, then went to the store for a fresh bottle of bleach, since my wife’s bottle is two years old as she hardly uses the stuff. I tried again using the fresh stuff, and voila! --overnight the parts were completely stripped. Something must decay in the bleach over time so as to make it ineffective, so I thought I’d post up to make sure your bleach is fresh if you go this route when stripping chrome.
I’m no chemist, but when I kept an aquarium I used to “age” the water for the tank by sealing the water in a pail for a few days to let the chlorine evaporate. I would guess that the chlorine in the bleach evaporates over the course of several months, thus making the bleach ineffective. [8-|]
Along the same lines, in my experience, it seems like the cheaper the bleach is, the better it works. A fresh bottle of the generic stuff really seems to blast the chrome off more quickly.
The fresh bottle I bought last night was Clorox, but after I filled the pan, I’d say I started seeing results within ten minutes. I wonder what’s different about the generic stuff?
While we’re speaking of it, does anyone know an easy way to get the clear coat of chrome “primer” off? I understand there’s a coat of stuff under the chrome itself that needs to come off if you want to bring out more details in the molded part.
Well, I decided to just leave it the way it was after the bleach. I primed all the chrome parts, and they may lose some more detail by the time I get new paint on them, but this kit is 30 yrs old anyway, so I figure not much difference.