I've never worked at a chroming place but I do talk to them a lot, mainly because I do a lot of their prep for them and that surprises them and they seem to take a interest in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So I have learned a few things from them that others may not know. First thing I learned was that chrome is a yellow cake like powder and it's not the chrome which makes it shine, it's the nickel, nickel is the base coat and chrome is the lacquer, that's roughly how they explained it to me. The smoother the surface, the better the finish, so if they can polish it then it comes out much better than areas where they can't or don't want to polish it. Like the original 500 exhausts, really bright chrome on the outside, where you can see it, but much duller on the inside where you don't look. Same for brake pedals and lots of other things, polishing is expensive and time consuming so they try and avoid it whenever possible. That's why you have duller areas, it's because they couldn't get the polishing machines in there OR they could but it was bloody awkward or very time consuming and that makes it a lot more expensive to the customer. IMO if you try and buff it up you'll not get great results, you'll just reduce the layer of chrome on top of it. It's worth trying a small area and see if it improves the look but I'd not hold out to much hope TBH. You'll just have to live with it.
