Can I paint directly over chromed parts, or do I need to remove the chrome first?
I would recommend stripping the chrome before paint, however I have dull coated over Italeri chrome and it will hold paint or weathering product.
I just dealt with this problem for the first time on the Carrera GT build I’m doing. I didn’t like the toy-like look of chromed plastic parts, so I decided to strip the chrome and paint them myself with Alclad. The other reason is that all of the chromed parts for the headers had these ugly parting lines on them that needed to be removed. I soaked my chrome parts in Simple Green for about 24 hours, which removed all of the chrome. Then, as much as I hate the whole concept of using Sodium Hydroxide on styrene plastic, I gave the parts about a 20 minute soak in yellow cap Easy Off to remove the clear carrier under the chrome. The completed and Alclad re-chromed headers look much better, I think.
