Excuse the novice question:

I'm working on repainting an old frame with a chromed fork.
The upper blades and crown are painted, but the entire fork is chromed underneath, with the lower half of the fork exposed.
How can I remove the existing paint without messing up the chrome?
Will a chemical stripper affect the finish?

Paint stripper won't hurt chrome.

Is that the original paint? It is probably not chromed under the paint, usually just the dropouts and crown are chromed on old forks.

I sanded off a small rust spot on the fork and it certainly looks chromed underneath. I scratched it up pretty good.
That's when I posted here, I didn't want to mess up the finish any more.
Also, on the steer tube just above the crown, I can see the chrome layer extending out beneath the paint.
The fork looks like it was dipped before it was primed and painted, is that how things are chromed?
Either way, now that I know stripper won't hurt it, I'll go that route. Thanks.

AS A NOTE; after stripping the old paint, be sure to clean the frame/fork THOROUGHLY be fore painting. Soap and water first. This will get most of the paint stripper off. Use of a BRASS wire toothbrush will help get the little spots off (careful though, the brass will scratch the chrome somewhat, just not as badly as steel bristles) THEN, just before applying paint, wipe down the parts with wax& grease remover. Available in QT's at any automotive paint supply. Mask* the chrome and start painting!
*ONLY use QUALITY masking tape (the BLUE or GREEN kind 14 day $4-$7/roll NOT $.99!!!!!!!) Also be sure to mask inside the seat tube,BB shell and around downtube shifter bosses, cantilever posts, etc.
TO MASK seattube & BB shell: Run a piece of tape about 2" into the seattube (after cleaning with W/G remover) It will not go all the way around in one shot, so before you put in a second tape, trim the first one. Use a #11 Xacto blade and hold it at about 45 degrees and run it along the edge of the seattube to trim the tape perfectly. Then keep doing that till you've got it covered. Same technique for the bottombracket and head tube. This will usually make it so you won't have to have the tubes chased, faced or reamed to get the parts to go back together well.
TO PAINT; secure a wood dowel that will fit into the haedtube easily. You can clamp it in vice, bolt it to the front of your workbench or whatever. This post is to hold the frame while painting, so it MUST be SECURE! Now drop your headtube over this post and your frame is ready to spray. Start with the frame bottom up. Spray carefully around the tube joints FIRST! then come back and spray the tubes. Top half only. (or rather bottom half, as the frame is currently up-side down) Next, with one finger (w/latex gloves) in the seat tube and two fingers in the bottombracket shell, lift the frame off the post and CAREFULLY turn it over. Starting with the tube joints again, follow the above routine. Do this for all the primer/color/clear and you should have a wonderful paintjob!
OH, by the way. To REMOVE tape fron seattube. Use the backside of the #11 blade (NOT the sharp edge) and slide it into the slot on the back of the seat tube where the clamp goes. Push gently against the tape until it starts to come loose. Then take a pair of sturdy tweezers and and slide one tong on either side of the tape and then twist it like a sardine can key. That will roll up all the tape and you can just pull it out.
Good luck with that. If any of my ramblings were unclear, e me anytime.
Ciao,
Dr. D

+1

Decorative chrome plating is applied to steel as follows:

1) The steel to be plated is buffed and polished until it is very shiny and smooth. The final finish will be only as fine as the polished steel it is applied to.

2) The steel part it electroplated with copper.

3) The part is then electroplated with nickel -- nickel is what gives chrome it's silver color.

4) The nickeled part is then electroplated with chrome. Chrome is translucent, it seals the nickel layer underneath. Without the chrome, the nickel plate would corrode and scratch very easily.

The final color of chrome need not be silver. Depending on the color of the base layer, chrome can be lots of different colors, including black which was very popular in the 70's.

It's far more work to selectively chrome a fork that way. Just the wear surfaces of the front and rear dropouts were chromed on my Nishiki Landau. I noticed there was chrome underneath where the paint was scraped on the fork, so I started stripping it and found it was all chrome, including the crown. I next started looking at the rear dropouts and ended up stripping the paint about 6" - 8" along the seat stays and chainstays and even farther along the right chain stay where the chain slaps. It was all chrome except the right chainstay, which was just nickel after 8".

The reason I said that was because my maserati has chrome campy dropouts and crowns, but the blades were painted over bare metal.

Great post Dr. D - you should compose a painting FAQ.

Has to be the sharpest Nishiki I've ever seen. Beautiful selection of components there.

-Kurt

They are mostly the original components, except for the Shimano 600 crank (came with a pretty SR Apex swaged crank with drilled rings) and I replaced the saddle with an Avocet and the SR stem with a longer one. I added the gold ESGE fenders and Norco rear rack in anticipaton of some longer distance touring.