I want to chrome some wheels I have, they're slightly rust pitted.

I've seen it on a few threads on here but now can't find those threads What is the most cost effective method?

Any suggestions would be great!

send them away to be re-chromed. its a pretty specialist job. expect to pay £££££

You'd be better polishing them yourself.... chrome wheels

If they're steels, you'll find the odd company or two able to chrome them in the classifieds of some classic car mags (or google)

If they're alloys, they'll need to be polychromed - popular in the U.S (seen Golf teardrops, various merc wheels and Audi pepperpots done in various chrome colours/tints over there, some looked great), i don't know of anyone doing it over here.

Did someone say cost effective?

http://m.diy.com/mt/www.diy.com/nav/decor/...un_jtt_redirect

^Not that i'd do my wheels in it, but is that paint any good on small pieces? I have tried chrome paint and its just silver!

^Not that i'd do my wheels in it, but is that paint any good on small pieces? I have tried chrome paint and its just silver!

Its shit...

HOWEVER, the bronze stuff is good

fair few places doing chrome powder coating now and the pices of it arent that bad :)

Failing that, tin foil and super glue

Yes the tin stuff is awful.

But theres new technology coming to the UK. Its spray on chrome. First you spray on chemicals then over the top with water. Its how they do the whole chrome cars.

The whole system costs thousands so doubt it will be cheap.

I thought chrome cars were vinyl?

And the spray was clearly a joke

My friend does helmet painting, but I think to do chrome he sends them to America to be dipped, then uses coloured lacquers to get different colour chrome

I was offered my wheels chromed for £2 a wheel haha

Old friend of mine works at a metal coating place. I refused I'll stick to polished thanks

Edited 7 September, 201214 yr by matt-c

My friend does helmet painting

I did not need that image in my head.

well for £2 at least you know it would be a top quality job!

Well it's a metal finishing company with a large client base so what do you reackon maybe something to do with the fact he is owners son.

Bellend

Well it's a metal finishing company with a large client base so what do you reackon maybe something to do with the fact he is owners son.

Bellend

You didn't say that though, did you? So was there any need to call him a bellend..?

Not your best ever response tbh.

Shut up bellend

You can shut up, an all.

Anyway, been looking at that chrome powder coating, it's not chrome of course but it looks good, in fact it looks like ball-burnishing.

Anyone got any experience with ball-burnished alloys?

Appologies I should of mentioned in my previous post as I kept it quite brief.

Not a fan of being mugged off so yeah in future I will elaborate

Can't say I'm impressed with the chrome powdercoating I've seen. It looks like it has a laquer, which doesn't give it that chomre shine

Generally chromed wheels last longer then polished (the finish anyway..) but the cost is higher as it is relavent to the quality of the finish and as such is relavent to the length of time Before it rusts. We had the wheels on our beetle chromed around 8+ years and it's been standing with not much attention for almost the whole time and the wheels haven't even rusted. We did pay around the 1k mark to have them done though.

Although if you search aroubd you could probably get a good price but as they are chipped I would imagine that they would charge a little extra to sort that out beforehand.

Also if done right a good polish job will shine almost as well as chrome, you could even do it yourself.

Thanks for the heads up, polishing is more what I was after so that works well!

To polish them you need something like Nitromors to strip the paint off, then you need lots of sandpaper. I would start off with 400 or 600 grit depending how bad they are and work your way up from there.