I have a 78 Paramount track bike. I plan on painting it in the near future. I got the decals from waterford (for 80 dollars !!).

The paint on it now is original and pretty messed up. But i can see underneath where the paint has chipped off that the chrome extends well beyond the actual chromed part of the bike. Does it make sense that they actually chromed more of the my bike and painted over most of it? Right now only the dropouts and fork tips are chrome, but I can see that there is a difference in the color of the metal on both parts that are dipped (part of the rear triangle and the half of the forks).

So, when I go to get it painted, is it possible that I could just have the frame masked and polished to expose more of the chrome? Or is it just a biproduct of the original chrome job?

I have one frame that was chromed in the rear up to the bb on the chainstays and to within an inch of the downtube on the seatstays.
It was mostly painted over.
In small production runs, there can be great variances from one bike to the next.
It is possible that your entire fork is chromed beneath the paint.

If you use a chemical paint stripper, you can reveal how much of your bike is chromed without destroying the chroming.

Many bikes had chromed rears or forks- the issue might be that if the paint is in that bad of shape, the chrome may be rather pitted- but otherwise, why not?

In fact, the chemical stripper can help clear up the blemishes/pitting on the chrome ;)

When they used to chrome bikes, they were often fully dipped. When the chrome as so-so, it exacerbated rusting on the top tube and other places (especially on road bikes with more braze-on bits and more weather exposure). Bikes rarely got automotive-quality chroming; today you can get good chroming from Joe Bell and a couple other painters, but it's hard to find and very expensive.

The problem with bike frames is that the surface of the frame has to hold a strong electrical charge while it's sitting in the vat of chroming solution. All the tubes and angles create interference by creating a local magnetic field that blocks effective chroming in "tight" areas, such as behind the bottom bracket, under the seat lug, etc. As a result, the chrome is very weak in just those places that need the best chroming. A careful chroming will apply chroming in several steps with the bike and the electrical clips repositioned so each part of the frame gets a good "hit," but that of course makes for quite a bit of expense and hassle.

The point of this long-winded ramble is that your chrome may not be worth trying to save. Paramounts had chrome that was much better than average, so don't rule it out, but it's expensive and a major hassle to remove paint without sandblasting (which of course kills the chrome as well).

If sand blasting--tape off any part that is not to be cleaned with sand by tapping and old intertube around the area. Sand will not eat trough the rubber.---sam

waterforf refinished paramounts to their original look - stickers and all. Something to think about. You got pics of your bike? I have a paramount also... i love the bike.

Your frame is most likely all chrome underneath.......they only polished the areas that would remain unpainted, the fork ends and the chain/seatstay ends.You could strip the paint w/ chemical stripper and try to polish the rest of the frame or more of the frame. Nice bike..........g'luck!

do you have to have the pictures hosted somewhere in order to post? im pretty much a rookie when it comes to forums.

I can see a difference in the underlaying metal on the fork, because the fork has rusted past the halfway point towards the crown, but towards the tips, you can see the unpolished chrome.

how do put a picture up in here?

the site will host it for you. click "reply." under the text box you'll see a link that say "manage attachments." go to that and paste the file name in there. click "upload." hellloooooo picture.

werd....thanks