You will have to sand the chrome to get a rough surface for the etch to stick. I have done this many times with a small flap wheel in a drill. Use an industrial brand of etch, not something from Bunnings. Ignore all the utubes that tell you to use battery acid/vinegar/caustic soda to remove it. The only real way to get the chrome off is to take to chromers and get them to reverse the current to put the chromic salts back into the solution.
Dry bead blasting is another option. It will be very difficult to remove the nickel-plated portion of the chrome treatment, but the actual chromium-plated top layer should come right off and leave you a nice "even" surface as a key for your spray paint. Of course using abrasive paper will work too, but it is often difficult to get into the corners. Regards, James
What part's are you cleaning up to paint ? Year's ago i had some wheel's sand blasted to get rid of the ratty paint, turn's out they had been chromed at some stage and had rusted, so the person painted them. Got them back from the blaster and there were some big patch's of chrome missing, i ended up etch priming them and then high fill priming them to get rid of all the the low's. Sometime's you can get away with using some green Scotchbrite to key the chrome, otherwise use a random orbital sander and some 80 grit paper, depending on how big the part's are you may go through a fair bit of paper You can also use 3M Clean and Strip disc's in a buff or angle grinder or drill, a tough/coarse version of Scotchbrite You can get the fibre flap disc's too for the angle grinder Dont use too much pressure though, let the weight of the machine on the disc do the work https://www.bunnings.com.au/scotchbrite-paint-rust-stripper-disc-101mm_p6314198 https://www.bunnings.com.au/josco-1...readed-centre-quick-change-flap-disc_p6320540 Get some Protec Etch Pro or Wattyl Super Etch Primer to use as a base coat
