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Thread 44/51

Stripping hard chrome from Aluminium

We have been asked to refurbish some aluminium parts that have been hard chromed, the coating has peeled away in a section. Is there any way of stripping the chrome off without damaging the aluminium, or at least minimising the amount of etch.

Colin Hawke
A Class Metal Finishers - Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
2000
publicly reply to Colin Hawke

A warm chromic acid solution with zero sulphate, about 20 oz/gal is fine, make the part anodic, about 9 volts if I remember correctly, and the chrome will come off rapidly. Where the solution gets to the aluminum, it will anodize a thin layer and not conduct much current. Standard alkaline etch will remove the chromic anodize rapidly.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2000
publicly reply to James Watts

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