Originally Posted by
horatio
Not fom me.
My BF search turned up quite a few of those. Aluminum foil worked well for me on an older Japanese Bianchi frame.
It makes sense that chrome forks and stays would be more durable. I was more curious about chrome plating under paint, rather than a pure chrome finish (ala Paramount.)
Guess it was just a fad, like many other "innovations" in cycling.
Once upon a time, chrome plating was a lot less regulated, was cheaper, etc. Labor to do just parts of a frame vs. just dunking the whole thing favored doing the whole frame. The extra labor was directed to buffing and protecting what was visible after painting, like forks, lugs, rear triangle, etc.. Some frames were really nice everywhere, while others were pretty dull where the chrome was under paint.
It also helped that in the 70s and 80s, the automotive chrome business were found in nearly every medium size city and were short on customers since chrome on new cars was fading away.