How to De-Chrome a Vintage Action Figure!

 

Isn't this an interesting image? Last year, I saw an Ebay seller who kept offering these amazing vintage Kenner Star Wars figures (namely, C-3PO and the Death Star Droid) that were "de-chromed" through a supposedly special process.  He kept ending up with interesting examples such as these:

Which were multi-colored, much as the highly-coveted Kenner prototype figures are, meaning they were made of leftover plastic from various (and test) items.  

From my own experience, any such figures I had ever seen where the vac-metalization had rubbed off were beige in color underneath, so I was curious to perform such an experiment myself, to see if I could get so lucky.  I researched it, and there are several chemicals that you could choose from to accomplish this.

From a website about model car parts, I learned that regular household bleach was the easiest to obtain (since I didn't have any brake fluid lying around), so I went with that.  I figure anything too strong would damage the plastic, anyway.  I first stripped a damaged Death Star Droid I'd ended up with.  It took a few days, and even then required some working over with an old toothbrush.  He ended up completely off-white, as I'd suspected.

The hardest part is to keep the figure submerged, because they are incredibly buoyant.  For my second go around, I found a heavy ring that was part of a lanyard (I think) for nametags, which had a clip, so I attached a loop to the clip that would loosely hold the figure's leg, and still keep it completely under.  This time around, for the C-3PO, I left the figure marinating for a few days longer.  As you can see from the photo, the gold flaked off and turned rust-colored in the bleach, and was quite unappealing.  

For those who may try this stunt themselves, I had to add some extra bleach after three or four days, and all I had the second time was a "splash-proof" brand that is formulated to pour easier...I don't know what they do to it, but it foamed quite a bit, and stayed that way.  It could have been a reaction to the action figure or something, but bleach is something that you want to behave when you are working with it, so I'd recommend the normal variety.  

In the end, the C-3PO was completely beige as well.  I would say "go figure," but that would be a bad pun, and that is frowned upon around here.