How to give color to chrome ?

When talking about chrome obtained by galvanizing process, i.e. hard chrome or decorative chrome, a simple bodywork primer or an industrial primer cannot create a level of grip acceptable. Hard chrome is in fact an extremely resistant metal that is difficult to bond, even with pickling processes and with acid products.

If you need to color chrome, you must first ensure the adhesion of the colored clearcoat that you want to apply above. Until today, there was no type of primer, opaque or transparent, capable of clinging to such a hard surface, even turning to the side of high performance epoxy primers.

SILAX primer : the first product that guarantees grip on chrome

Stardust has developed the first product in the world capable of guaranteeing grip on galvanic chrome : this product, called Silax, is a glossy, thin, liquid varnish, easy to use and which dries very quickly.

Numerous performance tests show that the adhesion level of silax on chrome reaches 80% in 24 hours and 95% in 48 hours, with temperature drying.

Staining chrome : Possible use of Silax

Silax is therefore a single-component varnish that can be used as a finish or as a primer. It can therefore be covered with paint or clearcoat, or it can be used as a tinting varnish.

StardustColors has a range of transparent concentrated ink, which includes 25 translucent colors, which lets light through and colors it. These concentrated inks named Candy can be added to any solvent-based clearcoat.

Silax varnish can therefore be tinted directly with bright tints such as red, blue or green to obtain colored chrome, or with tints in shades of yellow, gold, bronze, pink Golden. With this technique, you can color the chrome as desired, in a very simple and very fast way, without cooking because the silax varnish is dry in five minutes.

This primer for hard chrome, and of course intended for other uses than to color chrome, for example to be able to use it afterwards with any type of paint coating.

Application: it is done by spraying in one or two coats followed and spaced one to two minutes apart.

The other characteristics of Silax clearcoat

It's a very liquid clearcoat that mainly sticks to metals, and gives a shiny finish. Its dry thickness is very thin since we are talking about a thickness between 10 and 15 microns per dry coat.
For this reason, and also because it is a single component clearcoat, it does not represent a highly abrasion-resistant finish, as can be achieved with a classic bodywork or industrial type varnish.
It can therefore be covered with any type of thicker clearcoat and, to achieve this covering, it is important to recreate the grip with a simple sanding with 500.

The coloring of chrome, an infinity of possible colors

Transparent colors are dyes that in most cases are quite resistant to sunlight. These concentrated tints are very economical and contain no toxic products and no heavy metals.
They can be used in all areas of industry, decoration, equipment, bottles.
They exist in a wide variety of colors that can be mixed together. There are gorgeous colors of ultramarine blue or cyan, many shades of green, red and even black.
If you need to produce specific chrome colors, contact our colorimetry department and we can manufacture a custom dye for you.

Bodywork primer in pot
Bodywork primer in spray