After soaking all night in Bleche Wite, I still have flecks of chrome on the parts I am trying to strip. I even changed the solution and brushed the parts with a toothbrush. Any thoughts on a different product that will safely do the job?
Full-strength Simple Green, or “Purple Power” will do the deed. Soak covered in that for a day or two and then scrub away any chrome left with an old toothbrush.
Easy-off oven cleaner.
i actually have experience with this one… i restore die cast and easy off oven cleaner works great. doesn’t take more than 15 min to work
Put the parts in a Ziploc freezer bag. Douse them with one good foamy shot of Easy-Off. Wait a bit, then wash them up. Wear rubber gloves. 
Will the easy off also remove the shiny clear undercoating? I used simple green to remove the chrome and that worked well but the shiny clear undercoating is intact.
Yeah man, it takes it all off. Leaves a residue of it’s own, needs a good wash after, that’s it.
Unless the chrome plating (actually usually aluminum) is very bad/rough/super-thick, I just prime and paint it.
That’s true too, what Don says. Any good primer sticks to plated parts.
The reason why I will strip chrome is usually that usually it is too heavy of a coat and is obscuring details (such as writing on valve covers). If the chrome piece looks good, you can just prime it and move on… in fact that even allows to sand off flash/fill holes, all looks the same after primer.
Blake
I just de-chromed some parts yesterday and took me about 10-15 minutes with bleach from the Dollar Store. I put some bleach in a plastic container and dropped the parts in. Within a couple of minutes the chrome started to come off. After about 10-15 minutes took the parts out and rinsed them in water. No mess or fuzz.
Coincidentally, this weekend I needed to strip the heavy and not-realistic-looking chrome off the styrene trees for a Tamiya 1:12 Lotus 49 Formula 1 car. Soaking overnight in bleach did absolutely nothing on these, for some reason. Next, I poured a little Liquid Plumr (their spelling, by the way) into a plastic bin, dropped the trees in, and the chrome was off in less than 10 minutes.
I have heard of stubborn chrome so you had some of it. Tamiya must use superior quality chroming on their parts unlike the Chinese made ones. The chrome came off my parts within a few minutes with cheap bleach. Spray oven cleaner and Liquid Plumber will also do the trick on hard to remove chrome…
Yes, with Liquid Plumr the chrome came off with no apparent damage to the underlying plastic – which was clear styrene, of all things. I diluted it with a little water, mainly because I only had a small amount of the drain cleaner and needed to boost volume to cover the trees completely. I’m guessing that any liquid drain cleaner would do just as well…
I know it dangerous, but I use caustic powder, does it in about 2 minutes and doesn’t harm the plastic
L