I've just found that nickel plated pipes do go blue exactly like chrome if they overheat. But, unlike chrome, the blue comes off easily with Autosol. So, I wonder...is the blue on chromed pipes actually oxidised nickel? Theory: Oxygen diffuses through the chrome when hot, and blues the nickel. But then when it's cold the hard chrome prevents polish from removing blue oxide from the nickel underneath? Nickel is softer so I assume it's not safe to assume it can be polished very often, but it's interesting anyway. I shall use more ignition advance from now on...
I've not been able to find out exactly what the blue is on chromed pipes. All the "explanations" I have found are only descriptions ("it goes blue because it has overheated").
Next experiment is to try caustic soda oven cleaner to remove baked-on castor oil from nickel plated pipes. With care....and keeping it well away from any alloy...
Any comments would be interesting.
Everything I ride has blue…
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Proper Polishing
20 years ago I purchased a set of replacement sweptbacks for my Atlas. These pipes, from Armours needed a tweak on both sides in order to give clearance in critical areas. Heating and bending in selected areas resulted in a good pipe fit but serious bluing of the Chrome. Polishing with Autosol did help a little but the most effective solution was a rotary scouring disc. This removed the bluing fairly quickly leaving a matt finish. Some manual handwork with Chrome cleaner helped to sort that out.
Attachments show problem and cure.
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That looks like a proper…
That looks like a proper coffee bar cowboys bike Phil, Were you really one of those ?. If so you can join my club !.
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I think that heavy polishing…
I think that heavy polishing must remove the chrome completely. The ever-informative and unreliable Internet hasn't turned up any useful information that I can find. I've only just changed from a black downpipe to plated. Previous owner preferred nickel, partly because he did it himself, so I went for nickel so it wouldn't stand out. The bike seems to run well but it's probably been running hotter than necessary when it's being ridden hard along a motorway standard road, and the side effect of fitting a plated pipe has been to show that it should benefit from more ignition advance.
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Everything I ride has blue pipes ,I think of it as an afirmation that the bikes are actually used and are not some pampered irrelevant object. But perhaps its more indicative of my attempts to get my motors to run cleanly and not foul the plugs.