Friday, May 27, 2011

Modding: How to remove chrome from plastic

Urgh, what is that? A cheap knock-off? Some kind of factory error? The truth may surprise you...
Me Grimlock Naked!


A little while ago I received this Henkei Grimlock in trade, but unfortunately the silver chrome on him had worn quite badly and really hurt the look of the toy. There was only one thing to do: Strip it!

To remove chrome plating from plastic you will need:

Common household bleach (I got mine in Tesco for less than 50p)
Protective gloves to keep the bleach off you and your loved ones
Some old clothes so that you don't ruin your good ones (listen to your mum, now!)
A container to use as a 'bleach bath' (I used a simple glass tumbler.)

This is easy; you pour the bleach into the container, dunk the chromed part in the bleach, wait about 20 seconds and then throughly rinse the part clean and leave it to dry. The chrome just dissolves away before your eyes, reminding you how utterly terrifying bleach is. Please be careful with that crap, it's dangerous!

Take another look at that picture above; the surgical-beige plastic was all chromed and I didn't even scrub it to remove the stuff. Weirdly, the gold chrome was completely unaffected so I have no idea how to remove that. If you know why this didn't vanish, please let me know!

-Mattersmasher

4 comments:

MrVash104 said...

so wait grim was a KO and good thing ur getting over kill lol

Jeff said...

Dude! Bleach is pretty serious business!

Mattersmasher said...

MrVash - No he's a genuine Henkei Grimlock, just his chrome was damaged so I removed it. He'll get repainted in time.

MrVash104 said...

ok i see man

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