stripping chrome from auto parts

[stamant]

i have several cars in the process of restoration and have come to the replating/chrome stage which i have no experience in. at this point all i know for sure is that it is a very expensive procedure and my resources are limited.
what i thinking of doing is to strip the pieces an do a lot of the prep work, filling, buffing etc. and then have plating shop do the rest.
just figuring that if i can take some of the labor intensive work out of the process maybe i could make it all a little more affordable.

does anyone have any advice and or how to go about removing old chrome/nickle etc.
the various parts are off of vintage corvettes (1957, 60, 62) some steel other parts of pot metal.
thanks

[woodjames]

More than likely, without experience of having done this before you're probably going to make things worse. Be very systematic about what it is you do and make sure you can truly repair a piece and not just make it better than it was. You can help with the process, but do everything one step at a time. If it looks right to you, but makes more work for the plater because it was done wrong, then you've just compounded the problem. Successful plating is the end result of tons of trial and error, and that's what you're really paying for. I'd hate to see you string errors together like everyone does at first and be worse off.

Without seeing the parts, can't tell you what is the best way to remove the chrome, as every situation is different when it comes to restoration. Please post some photos of 1 part and we can get started there.

-Jimmy.