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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1557193635 Message started by philthymike on 05/06/19 at 18:47:15 |
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Title: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/06/19 at 18:47:15 This project escaped me a few years back so here's the revisit. Ingredients:
Scuff up part with steel wool for two minutes or more. Put on gloves. Eye protection and a rubber apron are a good idea if you have them. Mix hot water and acid in pyrex, stir with dowel - slowly! Place part in pyrex. Stir, stir stir..... For this particular part it was down to the copper plating in 2 hours. After 3 hours the copper was gone too. Little specs of chrome survive here and there in gouges and scratches in the metal. But 99.995% of the chrome is gone. Before picture... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/06/19 at 18:48:05 During picture... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/06/19 at 18:48:49 After picture 1... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/06/19 at 18:50:58 Ideally you'd want to rinse and soak the part with deionized water afterwards. I didn't have any so I used lots of tap water. Once done soaking I will sand it nicely and it will be ready to be sent for powder coating. Also the time this took would be cut in half if I had the means to keep the solution hot. Maybe I'll go to the thrift shop and get a 2nd hand crockpot next time. After picture 2.... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by batman on 05/06/19 at 22:51:45 Can't remember ,do you pour water into acid or acid into water? |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/06/19 at 23:11:28 Never add water to a concentrated chemical. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/07/19 at 04:44:30 With powdered acid slowly mix into the water . Less chance of powder becoming airborne and inhaled accidentally As this morning my part is still making bubbles in soak water. I may have to go pick up deionized water still to get the reaction to stop. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by Dave on 05/07/19 at 07:12:07 Good to know....I have a chrome steel fender I want to paint. I would think that boiling water would help to get the acid out.....or maybe water in an ultrasonic cleaner. A local powder coating place sandblasts the chrome and has good luck making the powder stick onto chrome.....the rough surface provides adequate adhesion. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by ohiomoto on 05/07/19 at 07:20:10 675C5146575B40465D555847340 wrote:
For the cafe or are you holding out on us?? |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by Dave on 05/07/19 at 07:40:09 3532333537352E355A0 wrote:
For the cafe or are you holding out on us?? [/quote] Yea....the front fender I have on it now was a good match for the 100/90-18 tire - but the fender has too larger of a radius for the 90/90-18 tire I am using now. I got a chrome fender from an early Honda that is a better match - but it needs to be cut down and reworked a bit. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/07/19 at 12:23:24 The PCB house I used to work at used an ammonia based etching solution so I don’t have much experience with this Ferric Chloride stuff. After etching we would hang the work in a deionized water bath for awhile and then rinse with tap water. Once dry it went into the reflow oven. So I’m not sure the best procedure for getting this acid off the work. I changed the soak water this morning so I’ll see how it’s doing after work. A whole fender might be a bit big for this. I can’t say how much acid it would take. I think that this method is fine for small intricate shaped parts like the header clamp but something big like a fender is another story. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/07/19 at 14:52:07 Water bubbly and cloudy. Still some out gassing yet. Time to try deionized water.... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/08/19 at 07:50:21 Didn’t get deionized water. The part stopped bubbling after the last tap water change. Time for some sanding.... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/08/19 at 08:01:21 What would be wrong with a baking soda and water rinse? When I grenaded a battery with a grinder spark I rinsed everything with that and never had a problem. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/08/19 at 09:48:50 It would probably be ok. The problem with the tap (hard) water is the minerals in it. They react with the acid instead of displacing it. Or something along those lines, I’m not a scientist. The deionized water has no minerals or charged particles so it doesn’t have any reaction with acid. In the end though it seems with enough tap water eventually the acid dissipates. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by SavageMan99 on 05/08/19 at 18:00:07 Would this work on chromed aluminum? Also, how about on the two fork braces? :-? |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/08/19 at 19:30:49 No this does NOT work on aluminum. See picture.... It looks to me that the chrome and copper plating were unevenly plated. In areas where the plating was thinnest the acid reached down to the aluminum way before the plating had dissolved elsewhere. And those areas of aluminum became food for the acid. I wasn't sure how aluminum would react. Have seen good results on steel before but now i know aluminum reacts badly to this kind of acid. :o |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by SavageMan99 on 05/08/19 at 21:24:17 Oh well. I've got plating and deplating equipment somewhere still packed away. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/09/19 at 10:34:49 On the bright side there’s nothing mechanically wrong with the clamp. I’m gonna own my mistake and put the header-clamp-of-shame back on my bike. It doesn’t look any worse than my crankcases after the past couple harsh winters. And I got that nasty cloudy chrome off. Couldn’t stand looking at that. Anyway for the future don’t use this dechroming method on anything but steel parts. Works like a charm on steel. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/11/19 at 12:44:37 And here's the header-clamp-of-shame back on the bike. |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/11/19 at 12:45:47 From the distance it isn't so bad though.... |
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Title: Re: Adventures in Acid Stripping Chrome Post by philthymike on 05/11/19 at 12:46:59 And the new header wrap gets rid of the rest of the ugly rusted out chrome on the header! |
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