De-anodizing...

how do i do it? I tried caustic soda and i might have fucked iot all up...anyone got a lecture or a link to give? Mike?

caustic soda never gets good anodising off properly. Instead it makes it patchy, reacts with aluminium making it sort of black, and leaves a coating of white oxide you can almost never get rid of.

What end result are you going for?

chrome like

i used over cleaner gel with 20% sodium hydroxide, nasty stuff, got rid of 90% of the anodising, just had to use fine grades of wet n' dry then polish with Autosol paste to get mirror finish.

chrome like

you really dont need to bother with trying to chemically strip the anodising then.

Your attempting to "mirror polish"

you shall require a dremel/rotary tool or bench polisher.

2 bars of non ferrous polishing compound, one for cutting one for final polish.

approx £2each for huge bars.

2 or 3 cotton (calico wheel & a soft buff) heads for your dremel, £1.50?

some emery paper

and wirewool.

1. rub away all the coloured material with some coarse paper. It should get shiny, but still be pretty rough.

2. Rub with some less coarse paper to try smooth out some of the scratches. Then follow with wire wool to try get it to a reasonable smooth "shine"

3. fit cotton wheel to dremel, dampen and apply cutting compound by spinning, work it onto the item and patiently polish away for some time.

4. Clean off, admire results. Then go in for final polish with 2nd compound, work away for some time.

5. Clean off, admire results, then go at it one last time with a dry soft shammy type cotton attachment.

finish!

alternativeley, take item to a "metal finishers" or if delicate, a jewelery polishers.

i used over cleaner gel with 20% sodium hydroxide, nasty stuff, got rid of 90% of the anodising, just had to use fine grades of wet n' dry then polish with Autosol paste to get mirror finish.

oven cleaner? pah!

Ive used 100% sodium hydroxide, it bareley touches proper anodising, just makes a mess.

Jol's guide with pics

Nice pics there from Jol.

Thing is, that item was already polished, the process just buffed it up.

I assumed we were talking about stripping darkly coloured hard anodising on a rough unpolished surface.
Sodium hydroxide in this case would not be enough to remove the anodised material, and the autosol not enough to do the polishing.

i did the same on a black anodised brake lever, worked a treat, came up super polished.

just read this over, and wondered what oven cleaner works best, or which one have others used?

want to strip my black rx-1 cages.

mr muscle is what i used

you just need one that has sodium hydroxide, and looks bad for your health, loads of warning signs, no "fume free"

hope this helps

you just need one that has sodium hydroxide

+1

mr muscle is what i used

thanks, worked a treat.

Just polished a Cinelli stem by following Jol's tutorial.

With a bit of elbow grease I went from this:

To this:

Pretty happy with the results. Need to do the cranks now. :)

fuck, how long did that take?

Bout 2 hours but it was a first attempt, next time will be quicker.

will it stay that shiny do you reckon? looks wunderbar.

Hope so dude. Will probably just need a buff occasionally. Autosol polishes & protects and it's had 4 coats so shud do.

autosol is great stuff. would you post back in a few weeks and let us know how it lasts before i stick a load of nitto in a bucket full of chemicals?

If the Nitto is polished then dont do it, but if the annodize is dulled then, do it!

It shud last like anyother polished metal, coz I've stripped away the annodized layer that has tarnished, but will keep you posted.

awesome, thanks.

what about de-anodising a basically new halo rim and hub can I poss do this with out taking apart the wheel.

I am very short of money and want a silver rear wheel and cant rebuild it myself

which method should i use

would doing this to a pewter Goldtec hub be OK, seeing as much of this thread is about making silver things shinier. Would it affect strength or not?

use anusol with lots of vigorous rubbing comes up nice and shiny

use anusol with lots of vigorous rubbing comes up nice and shiny

Use a cloth with one finger and go around the rim in a circular motion.