I have a small problem on the Raleigh Super Course that I restored almost a year ago. It was built from a found frame that had been spray painted over, including the chrome drop outs. This started out as a budget build up, so I elected not to have the chain stays and dropouts re-chromed. In a past life this frame had suffered the indignity if having the cable guides ground off by some misguided genius. I used a screw on clamping guide on the chain stay. On the painted areas I had new braze ons added prior to paint. The chain stay is showing a little surface rust where the cable guide was removed. Is there an easy way to preserve the frame from rusting in this area? I've heard something about chrome paint, but never used it. I gave the surface rust a shot of Turtle Wax chrome polish, and it cleaned up pretty well, second picture. I don't know if there is a more permanent fix. Thanks.

Nothing I know of will mimic the real chrome, but if you polish the rust off very well, then spray the entire stay with clear lacquer, it would protect it.

I thought of that, I'll l give it a try. Thanks. I know people used to semi preserve brass radiator tanks on restored cars that way.

That took me back to my early days in the Navy. They gave us these brand-new brass belt buckles which we had to polish, and part of the process was polishing-through the lacquer that was on the brass, which took forever, just so we could get to the real brass underneath the lacquer, then polish that. Well, any residual brass polish on the buckle always seemed to manage to move over to those brand-new white pants they made me wear. Months and months later at a new duty station, I was angrily polishing my belt buckle (for the hundredth time) for inspection, and my bunk-mate said, "Dang, Jackson, just go to the PX and buy a new buckle, it has the lacquer on it and you don't have to polish it." Stupid Navy....

Testers makes a chrome model paint. Not a match for sure, but it will protect it.

But if you really want to do "spot" plating with the real metals...there's Caswell:
Plating Kits - Caswell Inc
And no, it's not cheap.
yes, it also takes practice.

Type in spray chrome in google/safari or whatever browser your using (videos on YouTube). It is a wet chemical 3-4(ish) part spay processes. Not like hard chrome but it looks good in person not as shiny but close. Show cars , custom motorcycles.... plastic, wood, metal... (video showing a European mount Dear...) Not as durable but in a low ware area....could be quite nice. Thinking about using it on a fork.

Cheers,
Tony

+1 on Caswell brush-plating. It works great, I cleaned with oxalic acid then touched up some corrosion on a Raleigh Competition and International on the underside of the headtube lugs. Looks good, and my primary intent was to prevent any additional corrosion in any case.