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Where to find Chrome Stripper

I am writing because I'm not having any luck finding a chrome stripper. I am in the process of de-chroming my 1966 Karmann Ghia. And want to strip the chrome of my door handles so I can paint them black. I can't seem to find any chrome stripper online. Any help offered will be much appreciated.

Darren Carillo
- kekaha, Hawaii
2000

2000

Hi, Darren. The problem is that you won't exactly find a "chrome stripper" because what you want to remove is not chrome, but a layer of chrome plating possibly followed by layers of nickel plating.

One approach is to remove the chrome layer with muriatic acid [affil links] -- this is a toxic and hazardous material requiring the use of goggles [on eBay or Amazon] and rubber gloves [on eBay or Amazon] as a minimum -- and then lightly sandblast the nickel plating to give it a bit of tooth. Alternately you can remove the nickel plating layer with a nickel stripper available from such companies as Metalx (Ronatec.us) [a finishing.com supporting advertiser].

You may wish to look at our FAQ, "Introduction to Chrome plating". Stripping chrome has been a very popular question here, and there are a bunch of threads on line here about it, including numbers 385, 737, 1476, 1598, 2351, 2450, 2586, 3041, 3459, 3509, 10996, 4245, and 4451. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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