After a fair amount of trial and error involving soaking in Formula 409 and alternatively soaking in straight bleach as suggested by a fellow modeler, I started to research a bit more. Specifically removing the plating from AMT models. Lo and behold, I found a nice article (since have lost the link) stating that oven cleaner does the trick of removing both the chrome AND the underlying lacquer ESPECIALLY on AMT models. The best results the author had was with Walmart's Great Value brand oven cleaner.

So to the store I went to grab some and in went some unneeded chromed parts for a test of this chemical bath. Unfortunately, I don't have any resulting photos of the test parts, but it proved to be just what the doctor ordered!

Owner caption March 2019 · Photo 320 of 343