I’ve just spent many hours doing prep for painting chrome for the bumpers. Ironically I strip all the kit chrome from the chromed parts because it just never looks right and you always end up with an ugly spot where the part comes off the sprue. It’s much better to take it back to bare plastic, then trim and fill sink marks. After that be prepared for hours and hours (depending on the size and quality of the kit parts) to get ready for chrome painting. Here’s where I got to this afternoon.
You might think that’s some sort of smoky chrome, but no. It’s just the original kit parts after literally hours of wet/dry sanding and polishing with this
I need to get the plastic as close to perfect as I can.
The reason for going to all this trouble is that chrome paint is incredibly thin. Even over a primer and a glossy black base, the chrome will show every flaw in the original plastic. So you have to remove as many flaws as you can and get it glass smooth before applying any primer or paint.
I’m pretty happy how these came out. I stilll need to fill a few sink marks, but the parts are glass smooth. The bad news is after some dry-fitting it looks like I will need to do even more work to get the bumpers and the overriders to line up. And the “inside” of the bumpers and the overriders will probably be visible, so I’ll have to paint the insides as well. Did I mention that absolutely nothing fits right in this kit?