Striping & panting emblems, tail rings or any chromed plastic

[rdaggett]

OK I just wanted to say I know this is not on a Camaro but I do have a 2010 SS ... I want to share what I did on emblems after researching a lot on car manufacturing electrostatic plating of ABS. I have had almost 59,000 hits on my thread on the other board and 41 pages of positive replies and this includes people do this process on other cars.

Ok I tried the painting the emblems black ... the first time I sanded and roughed up the chrome like finish.... Looked good for a day came home saw a little nick, ran my finger across it to see the damage and the paint came off quiet easy .... damn :?

I did a lot of web searches and found out that Mazda and most car manufactures use a 2 step electro plating base copper and the chrome like finish is electro plated aluminum. After finding this info out I did a search for chemicals that would strip the 2 different platings but not melt the abs plastic. After many hours and emailing many different chrome refinishers and chemical manufactures a search found that caustic soda will strip the plating .... hmmmm caustic sodas ..... will Pepsi work? OK OK it wasn't funny ..... most of the chemicals were not easy to get my hands on so I email 1 more place and they stated to try BLEACH. after reading the label it states that it will promote corrosion. I tried it and this is my results ........

We all know what the chrome emblems look like ... so here it goes.

this is what bleach will do to the finish .... it takes a long time (the 3 took 2.5 days). you will notice that the chrome turns black .... either use your fingers or an old brush to rub it away and soak in bleach again until you can not get any more copper/chrome off.

If you want to get all the black off soak the emblem in a 50/50 mix of ammonia/hydrogen peroxide ***WARNING ****DO NOT MIX BLEACH AND AMMONIA ... THE CHEMICAL REACTION WILL PRODUCE A GAS THAT WILL BURN YOUR LUNGS AND CAN POSSIBLY CAUSE DEATH***WARNING*** THIS MEANS WASH THE PARTS VERY GOOD, THEN 1 MORE TIME TO MAKE SURE. ***Disclaimer***www.camaro5.com and myself are not held responsible for the unsafe mixing and or handling of any of these chemicals. This write up is from information I used in my personal experience. Use at your own risk. I am in no was telling you to mix these. This is only a suggestion. ***Disclaimer***

The small amounts of copper left you can take an exacto knife #11 and slowly scrap it off and then sand the ABS in prep for paint.

After Bleach bath you can see how much chrome is gone and see the remaining copper


Here is the front emblem after bleach bath ... aprox 4 days / couple hour ammonia/peroxide bath and lightly scraping off remaining copper and sanded


And here is the finished product .... used black Krylon Fusion spray paint. 1 light\baked flash (in oven, i think fiance was going to kill me) 2nd light\baked, 3rd wet baked. Baking make sure it is an even finish


Hope you all like and hope it helps someone as I couldnt find a DIY write up on this ....it does take a while just remember the goal ..... sweet looking and durable emblems.

[IBM/2SS/RS/LS3]

Good info. Now off to buy 5 gallons of bleach for my Duramax grill..

[rdaggett]

lol true true