Chrome or polish?

[Guest]

I got 2 of these rims in for a fancy trike. The gray needs to be stripped off and redone in bike black with the rest left chrome ( front and back ). I've tried siphon blasting NOT! and my pressure blaster, but even that takes forever AND the weather sucks for blasting now! The back side comes off alot easier than the front, so there must be some sort of "killer clear"on the front side like the BMW wheels. Questions...Will the Solvent Kleene 1012 discolor the alum center piece? I've stripped pc off chrome and that's not a prob...UNLESS ( Q #2 ) these are polished and not chrome! This will be brand new 1012 by the way... Thoughts??

[Guest]

Re: Chrome or polish?

Their ad says it is safe on aluminum ...

[BeeBob]

Re: Chrome or polish?

I checked last night and the ads said their wheels are painted ( that's some tough azz paint! ), but nothing that I saw on that site about if they're polished or chrome. I'll try a diff American Racing site or maybe try to call them, thanks.

[BeeBob]

Re: Chrome or polish?

I just got off the phone with them. They are powder coated and the rest is just POLISHED...NOT chrome! They sure had me fooled, I would of bet money that the rest was chrome! Now what??

[BeeBob]

Re: Chrome or polish?

That's where the "time table" ( deadline for the cust wanting his wheels back ) and the weather comes into effect. My commercial blaster will do them for $15 each ( I'll mask ), but the weather has to cooperate and right now it's very wet and foggy. Not good weather for an outside blasting operation!

[baz]

Re: Chrome or polish?

even if something says safe for aluminium ,it does not mean it s safe for polished aluminium !
i see this too often , right now in my shop i got a complete SnS motor that i did a full polishing job on it close to 2000 $ worth of work and the guy used a spray cleaner that was acid based and the label said safe for aluminium , it was but for painted or bare aluminium but not for polished aluminium .
beebob i m sure you have an old polished piece of aluminium in your shop let it soak in the stripper for a while and then see what happens .
most strippers (the ones that don t contain lye or caustic soda)i have seen will not really harm the polishing they can however tranish it a little but can be easily buffed in a few minutes
the strippers that have a higher content in caustic soda will usually pit the aluminium

[BeeBob]

Re: Chrome or polish?

Thanks Baz, I will try to test some scrap, but no testing on these! the cust has already reminded me of how hard they were to get. I disagree with the hard to get, but then again I'm not forking up the cash for new ones either! So I'll play it safer and take them to my blaster,hopefully tomorrow he'll be able to blast. Thanks for the help...

[rbroker]

Re: Chrome or polish?

When the 1012 was new it didn't discolor it, but after a few strips of other colors it turns aluminum charcoal grey and must be blasted off.

[wiseguyz]

Re: Chrome or polish?

When the 1012 was new it didn't discolor it, but after a few strips of other colors it turns aluminum charcoal grey and must be blasted off.

I agree. At least on unpolished aluminum. I've actually never used it on a polished piece, but I assume it would do discolor the polished as well.