# Spray Chrome



## Rondo (Jul 23, 2010)

I am still plodding along on my Double Dragster build. It took a little fooling around to remove the chrome from parts that needed cleaning up and I am now dialing in a method of replacing the chrome. This is all new territory to me.

I have a bottle of Alclad II chrome ordered but yesterday at the LHS I picked up a spray can of SpazStix Mirror Chrome. Upon reading the directions, it appeared that I would need to lay down a base coat of water based paint to back the chrome. I had already painted some plastic spoons with MM classic black enamel though so what the heck, let's try it. The finish looks good to me. Not quite like chrome but I didn't really expect it to. I went ahead and sprayed some kit parts with MM black so they can be chromed tomorrow. The black is a spray bomb. Should have gotten the airbrush out but that doesn't happen very often. Here is my test spoon:










And here it is without flash:










Geez, with the flash it does look like chrome. Of course this is a very smooth surface with a wet coat of black under. Hopefully the Spaz chrome will be durable enough to get the model together. Alclad is said to be tough. I'll have to try it too.

Any general pointers on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks


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## steve123 (Feb 9, 2009)

It looks pretty nice! I can't give any pointers about alclad. (I'm an airbrush virgin)

Look at the stuff the aircraft guys are doing with alclad. The results you got with a spray bomb are pretty nice..and alot less work..

Steve


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## superduty455 (Jun 21, 2000)

You can expect the same results with Alclad. The smoother the black finish is the better the chrome will look. I treat it like a model body. Lay it down wet sand it etc.. It's how I get my Alclad to look as good as it can. 
The other nice thing about Alclad and airbrushing it, you can achieve different results with using a little or a lot more. 
Chris


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## Rondo (Jul 23, 2010)

Thanks guys.

Superduty455, your words are true. I chromed the blower assembly and intake manifolds and it became apparent that the base coat on the blowers was not the best. The intakes are decent, being a fairly small flat part, but the blowers are many sided and hard to get covered without having excess paint thickness. So the end result is shiny but like kit chrome the undercoat is heavy.











I may strip it and lay on a thinner coat with the airbrush. Not sure yet. I'm not stressing over trying to perfect the thing and I may just chalk it up to learning.


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