Stripping stuff with Caustic Soda

Should I bother? I kind of want to get some rims looking polished, but not sure if it's worth the hassle.

Anyone got any tips to make it as painless as possible? I need method... Soda in water, dip, leave for x mins, scrub with course wire wool followed by fine etc etc.

How do find a container big enough for a rim? Or do it in sections?

JOL and Dogsballs (and anyone else) hit me with your 'it's easy go for it' I need to hear your best advice, please.

just out of interest, what's them? I'm umming and ahhing about this too :s

EDIT: ah, rim.

oops didn't want to put rim in the title, peoples are funny like that

i use hot water as it makes it work faster in a big glass lasagna dish 3" deep, slowly rotating the rim round and round, 6-8" at a time. then wash with those cheap dish scrubby things with foam on the other side, as you take it out of the mix, so you can tell if it was in long enough.

Thanks Dale. You rule.

how dangerous is it to your hands? i have a thing of Kleen-off here but there aren't any specific instructions that i can see.

Skully, I did this with oven cleaner, not caustic soda, using Jol's technique might be useful.

[

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. :)

](http://www.londonfgss.com/post564039-14.html)

1kg caustic soda, £1.50, oven cleaner £5. same stuff but in can. i've never had issue with my skin as i wash down parts with running water straight away. need plenty of fresh air though.

Caustic soda dissolves fat to make soap. I would wear decent rubber gloves - thick ones, not just your mum's marigolds.

With enough soap we can blow up the whole world!!

And yes, gloves FTW, just used marigolds coz you're not in it for long. And a good rinse afert too.

does the anodisation just fall off the rim when exposed to the liquid or does it need a good hard scrub? better to know this sort of stuff beforehand than wonder during.

it dissolves the anodized coat, then all the sanding is cleaning the residue. i wanted to do it for a rim last year but it's so much effort, plus because the anodosing has been removed you'll need to polish them again pretty quickly as it gets dull again, and you can't really do it very well once it's laced up to a hub.

hmm.

1kg caustic soda, £1.50, oven cleaner £5. same stuff but in can. i've never had issue with my skin as i wash down parts with running water straight away. need plenty of fresh air though.

yeah but theses arty boys aren't used to playing with dangerous chemicals.

put some gloves on.

LPG has a point. But it's the price you pay for super shiny bits!

yup, silver annodising is there to protect the metal

And Murtle is here to protect the World!

just from dale

Thats good enough!

yeah but theses arty boys aren't used to playing with dangerous chemicals.

put some gloves on.

tit!

ha!
cunt!
I was just recalling the time I was yanked out of an airlock lab, after spilling something which had been described to me as 'more dangerous than HIV' due to its ability to go through skin.
That was fucking terrifying as its role is to introduce and switch on oncogenes into stable cell lines.

but seriously Caustic soda is no worse than darkroom chemicals.

I'm sorry Henry, I have no idea what you just said . . . does it involve a Mac or some acrylic paints?

my cat walked through some wet concrete* i had just poured last summer. neither of us were impressed but at least I didn't have to wear a fur coat made of stone :)

*masculine

I did this as well, big up Dogs for the info. Although I slightly fucked it, too much caustic. I would recommend hitting it twice, maybe three times, on a low does of caustic to avoid any pitting or acid erosion. Stupid me.

you're more prone to attacking the alloy if you do it multiple times as you've stripped some areas.

Got to be careful with this shit, we use it at work to eat alloy out of steel tubes, Given long enough it will completely eat away aluminium alloy.