Hey guys:
Let's be careful with that vintage chrome.
I recently discovered that there is something better than steel wool for removing rust from chrome. I hadn't heard of it before someone suggested that I use bronze wool for this purpose. The bronze is not hard enough to scratch the chrome. When I was shopping for the bronze wool, I also purchased a bronze (not brass - harder than brass) wire brush, so I bought that too. Both of my '59 Bianchi Competizione's had rust pitting on most of the chrome, and I used bronze wool to clean it off, and except for one place where the chrome was very thin to begin with, it all looks as good as new to me.
Another thing which really works amazingly well, is to crumple household aluminum-foil, and using water much the same as you would while wet-sanding paint, scrub the rust pitting with the foil and water. You won't believe how well it works, I was really surprised the first time I removed a couple of decades of rust from a set of chrome fenders.
Now if it would just work on the '61 Allegro Special that I purchased a couple of years ago. The chrome is completely crusted over with rust. It is now in a dry place, so I don't think it will get much worse, but it looks as though the rust has consumed the chrome beneath. Needless to say I haven't tried anything yet, but you can bet I will at least try. The paint and decals are in very good condition, and it would be a shame to be forced to have the paint redone because of the rusted chrome.
"Bicycle Mark" Perkins Fresno Cycling Club - Historian Fresno, California, U.S.A.
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002 16:59:48 -0800 (PST) Garrison Hilliard <garrison@efn.org> writes:
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Stewart Barrie wrote:
I've got a 79 Colnago with a lot of chrome on it. I plan to have it resprayed, but I've had a look at the prices for rechroming and its not cheap. Any tips for cleaning up chrome at home. I've got some light surface rust on the b/b shell?
Try extensive use of the woven fibers of ferric sheep (steel wool).
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