Overcoming dull Schwinn chrome

[1motime]

It's only money. At least there will be some cleaner/ polish on the shelf

 

[Frank and Pam Skid Kings]

Schwinn chrome usually has an amazing comeback rate. Just a guess, but bike plating from 1950 to around midyear 1953 probably were subpar due to the Korean war. Seen handlebars and rims with funky "chrome-like" plating that wasn't. Being a 54 could have been a victim of war process before things got back to normal.

 

[cbustapeck]

Cloth buff wheel and a cutting compound. It worked on some Schwinn rims but don’t know if you can ever get them back to a mirror finish?

I second this. You can get them to a polished finish with enough time - heck, you can get raw steel to a near-nickel finish with a good bit of time - just be careful to not burn through the plating. If you use a polishing wheel on an angle grinder, this can happen really fast, and I do not recommend without experience.

Note that with a bench polishing wheel, burning through the plating on something like that won’t happen easily, but you should get a feel for just how much that takes, first. I recommend the underside of handlebars, where there is usually a good bit of rust and if you screw up it won’t show.

Some other parts, like the base of a Delta Silveray, it is easy to burn through the plating. Guess how I know?

Short version: Bench polishing wheel is great, angle grinder is fast but dangerous; test first.