Help! My wife spilled paint(*) on our chrome espresso machine and in her cleaning fury scrubbed it off with a Scotch Brite-type of sponge. Needless to say, this put a nice haze on the chrome. I’ve brought it back quite a bit with Simichrome polish but there are still very fine scratches on it. Is there something finer than Simichrome that may lessen/remove these scratches?
Thanks,
capn
(*) Note to self - always check lid on paint can before shaking it vigorously.
On chrome, when you polish out scrathes, you’re really just glossing up the scratch (the gouge…the valley) so that it is reflective like the rest of the chrome, but your not really ‘removing’ it. Unlike paint, in which pigment can be carried into the gouges and fill them a bit, polishing chrome probably won’t achieve this. You not removing any scratches - you’re just buffing them up so they are reflective and less noticable, to a point.
Old chrome gets a certain petina from scratches. I don’t think there is much you can do other than polishing it. A more mild one won’t help, a more abrasive polish will add scratches!
Chrome is one of those finishes that drives people nuts because it isn’t responsive as painted finishes are. There is no pigment to move around.
A skiller restorer could almost certainly use “jeweller’s rouge” to buff out those surface scratches and restore your appliance to new-like appearance. (In the wrong hands [i.e. mine or yours], it might make things worse.)
Question is: how much are you willing to spend?
Do a Google and locate specialists in chrome restoration. Ask for a couple of tips over the phone.
And watch out for them keno girls out in Las Vegas. Willie Nelson says they can suck the chrome right off a trailer hitch.