At last report, the thicker chrome foil was in the lead. It's very reflective, so at first glance it seemed to look better than the Duplicolor. But, because of the all burnishing, the finish was uneven. Yep, an uneven mirror finish. Seems odd, but that's what it was.
The more I looked, the better the Duplicolor looked in comparison It's dust free and very smooth and even, even if it doesn't have the sharp reflective mirror surface that you want with chrome.
(It's hard to tell for sure, but I think my "beanie caps" are about half the diameter of the screwdriver handle used by CrateCruncher to test that foil. So you can see how I was getting wrinkles.)
Then the can of Spaz Stix spray showed up.
My first try was a flop. I sprayed it directly over grey Tamiya Primer. It looked dull. It would make a great aluminum metalizer, but it definitely was not chrome-y.
Where did I go wrong? I checked the Spaz Stix website, and lo and behold, their pdf guide warned that Spaz Stix is only for "interior" painting, meaning it's meant to be sprayed on the INSIDE of clear Lexan, the stuff used for RC car bodies. I called my LHS and told them what was going on. They assured me that their bumper/grille sample was an opaque part and that it was painted on the EXTERIOR. (They weren't sure whether the guy had used a black undercoat for that great bumper/grille combo.)
A black undercoat seemed to be the last and only hope. So I stripped one set of caps and painted them with Tamiya Primer and Alclad Glossy Black "lacquer." Then I applied a light, dry coat of Spaz Stix. I let it dry, and gave it a wetter coat.
Finally,
SUCCESS! Despite the warnings from the manufacturer, the
Spaz Stix looks great. Like the foils, it has a highly reflective mirror finish. And like the Duplicolor, the finish is consistently bright and smooth - no dull areas. There are only a couple of dust specks - not nearly so much as Alclad, which seems to be a monster for dust.
I'm very happy with Spaz Stix. For these little caps, it beats everything else by a mile. But with the HUGE caveat:
It has to be sprayed over a high gloss surface. Not just smooth, but high gloss! Alclad glossy black undercoat worked for me; I'm not sure whether other gloss blacks would do as well.
(It's possible that the source of the dust problem is the undercoat. The Alclad "lacquer" undercoat is slow drying. I'd like to see some tests using Spaz Stix over other enamels, over polished Tamiya synthetic lacquer and over glossy acrylic. Adhesion might be a problem, but it would be interesting to find out.)
For less complicated surfaces, I still prefer foil, either BMF or the auto parts stuff. But for tight corners and complex shapes, I've settled on Spaz Stix. I get mine at Burbank House of Hobbies,
http://www.houseofhobbies.com. They take orders on line.