spray on chrome pros and cons

-
B

bluetrane

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
175
Reaction score
3
Location
Gainesville, GA
I've been looking around on the web about this stuff and it looks pretty interesting. wondering what you guys think about it.
 
if you want to spend about 9 grand or so for spectra chrome, it does pretty good on stuff that doesn't have super fine detailing. if you have detailing or small letters then it's not so good. spray chroming process goes like this primer,base, tinner, activator, silver, clear. now tinner and activator are not thick and just prep the paint for a bond of the silver solution (too much and you yellow it, too little and doesn't chrome up in all spots) but just think of the paint on your car and add that to letters and details on your dash. need sharp crisp lines? not happening. spraying a smooth or non detailed surface and it comes out nice! oh and you HAVE to use their chemicals($$$$$).
you can't go to a mirror guilding shop that sells similar chemicals and then call for any support on the machine, they won't support any chemicals other than theirs.


or if your asking about cost to get it done, that's all over the board. I had prices for
speedo ,radio without A/c, radio with A/c ,glovebox and end piece priced out from 150.00 to 900.00 just in my local area. so a price breakdown for parts is "call and then go look at their work"


I had my dash sprayed in chrome. it wasn't perfect but it was 1000% better than what I started with. it's not as durable unless it's clear coated and then some of the shine goes away. Is it worth buying the system to do dash parts? nope not if you have raised lettering on your dash. it's useless. the system blurs the letters. other than that if it's a non lettered part it (the process) does a good job.
here's mine

the start.
View attachment DSCF3758.JPG

I stripped mine myself using original yellow top EASY-OFF oven cleaner with the lye formulation.
View attachment DSCF3764.JPG


got most of the pieces back from the sprayer. ehh so-so on the radio bezel, but not too bad on the others.
View attachment chrome dash3.jpg
speedo bezel came out great. it's still got to be clear coated and will loose some of that shine. but the 66 really doesn't have much chrome showing so it won't matter much.
View attachment chrome dash 5.jpg
after the spedo bezel was installed on the instrument cluster to test white faced look
View attachment DSCF4179-cropped.jpg
 
That looks pretty good 66.
Bluetrain, I tried that Spectrachrome on some side body mouldings and didn't like it at all. It's a 3 part process and It doesn't look like real chrome. You first black coat your pieces with a gloss black paint, then your supposed to kind of fog spray the chrome, followed by a clear coat.
The finish seemed to have the black gloss tint to it when done.
It might be fine on small parts but, to me anyway, just didn't look great.
 
thanks for the input. The stuff looks good, but the durable part kinda worries me. how do you think iut would hold up on exterior trim? I'm not planning on buying the system for home. I'm more curious about the price difference between spray on and chrome plating.
 
All of that kind of stuff we tried back in the old days, it was just glorified spray paint...
 
inertia said:
If you haven't seen it,, this Leno vid shows a cool "spray on chrome"..

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=200020&highlight=spray+chrome

hope it helps.
Click to expand...


that's basically what spectra chrome , mira chrome is(webs site was down from Asla corps that makes mira chrome so it's probably been replaced by another process. or any other spray chroming process is. basically a silvering nitrate spray with tinning solution activators sprayed over a painted process. 1,2,3,4,5 layers thick think of the detail lost on the first 3 layers (4th and 5th are really thin)

what they don't show you is the pre process of sanding, priming and base coat BEFORE the spray on chrome. the better the black/white base coat the better the chrome surface. Thats where the money adds up to do a part. YEP, metal needs to be painted since none of the processes stick to metal so ya can't skip that process.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top