It is interesting to consider how the foil thing works, but it is really not important, in my mind. I only know that it work and works really well. Abrasion, sure and no one likes to scuff up chrome plating, but is that what is really happening..?

Yes and no. Yes if the plating is unblemished due to the impact of the environmental issues over time. That would prove damaging to the chrome. But to use foil on a fifty year old surface, that has suffered the whims of time passing, it is not scuffing. It is removing oxidized material. Try this little test...

On a piece of oxidized chrome, that looks like this...


tale the time to clean the oxidized mess off with conventional means (soap and water, to remove as much grit as possible, then cleaning wax coupled with plastic scrubb pads, to remove oxidized material and things start to look good but do they feel good? Probably not as you will find that the oxidized chrome did not all come off (slide your finger over the surface and feel the roughness). But if you rub the area with foil, those little rough spots disappear, just like that and it looks like this...