Kona Kapu

Looks great. It would not be a massive issue for me if the Use seatpost got swapped for a silver Thomson Elite inline :)

Agreed. The USE is a bit garish .. I’d actually wrapped it in black electrical tape up to this point. 27.0 seat posts are a bitch to source. The Thomson inline I have coming is black as beggars can’t be choosers on ebay.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/MOUNTY-SPECIAL-Seatpost-27mm-34cm-Sattelstuetze-Aluminium-Alloy-MTB-roadbike-/392989401202?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0

Here's a tasty looking inline. Fairly priced.

If you were to use the Thomson you have coming and wanted it silver, it is pretty easy dunking it in drain cleaner and polish it up using a drill and some pads and compound.

But whatever it looks great no matter.
Also you have loads og silver and black components mixed so it actually fits the build.

Doesn't caustic soda eat away at aluminum though??

I used that stuff to remove a broken / seized quill stem out of a fork last year??

Well, when I do it I do it in short intervals taking it out of the bucket and rinse in cold water. Keeping an eye on the process constantly

We did some lab excersizes with anodizing in engineering school - there's a rule of thumb when removing ano as to how many seconds per micrometer of anodizing - I think we did between 20-30 seconds in a highly concentrated caustic soda solution.
I could probably dig up the tables we used to calculate the times.
But it definitely shouldn't be left unattended!

Removing black ano is pretty easy, as the colour lifts off the item quite quickly for visual confirmation.

1 - sweet ride
2 - if you do swap out the alien seatpost and wanna sell it drop me a pm

Yeah I left it in there for hours and the part of the stem that was seized in there no longer existed!

Good to know though about stripping ano l.

Stripping ano. I have not used it for paint.

That's what I meant my bad

Ha I’d be interested to see those numbers.
I’ve stripped the ano off a good few bits using costic soda. Like you say, black ano runs off into the solution quite quickly so it gives you a visual cue. I have a black Thomson seat post I want to do but hesitate just incase it did fuck up the tolerance and cause slipping.

@Josh Like Hulsroy said, doing it carefully in steps pretty much eliminates any chance of melting away any material. Once you’ve done it few times you start to get a feel for how much is too much. I done a seat colour once, the black ano started to run off really quickly almost immediately, that gave me a fright and I pulled it out and rinsed it off. It came out fine, but that event sort of taught me what it looks like if the reaction is too violent. So I tend to er on the side of caution with a weaker solution and use a small brush to help the removal along.

Just seen this in the classifieds.
I’m guessing this has had an attempt at removing the anodising.
How close to an og silver Thomson does a de-anodised black one get? I’d like to have it pretty close but thinking the grooved surface of Thomson posts might make a bright polished finish harder to achieve?
Got any photos of ones you’ve done?

Well if you polish it it would be more shiny but if you didn't sand it it would still have the lovely machining marks and probably a faded logo.
I havent done a Thomson yet but I have been meaning to. I just did the Rotor 3D cranks for my all road if you wanna compare finish

I believe Thomson silver is actually got a coating or anodising finish to it, it's not raw

Those rotor cranks look superb

Yeah its defo an anodised finish. While its still fairly bright, anodised silver parts tend to have a slight matt effect compared raw/polished alu.

@Hulsroy My thinking was that without removing the machining marks, even after polishing it might still look a bit dull. I have a professional polishing wheel and done my mtb cranks that came out really well here (soz, not that its competition!)
Polishing with the wheel in its self I suppose would flatten down the machining marks a bit. My worry is that removing them with wet and dry paper might make my 31.6 seatpost closer to 31.5!? The wet and dry sanding part also takes way too much effort.

I think I'm just going to give it a bash

Well machine marks are still very obvious on my rotor cranks. I will never bother with wet sanding again...

And now back to you @D_Mars...

I really like this build, I find the painted stem particularly cool : )

I always like to paint my stems

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Thomson turned up, but seems a little loose. I’m now convinced the bike takes a 27.2 - despite Kona’s info

Aero Kalloy 27.2 fits perfectly.., shame it weighs about 400g

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Aye sorry for anodising thread derail chat :)

I do think the bike would suit a silver seat post better.

What are those chainrings?

Chainrings are the CNC’ed ones that I pinched from the Race Face chainset.

I’m trying to keep a good black / silver balance … a silver seat post will make the black headset look odd .. and the black brakes 😬. Slippery slope

a silver seat post will make the black headset look odd

Now you say that… I think you’re right

Really like those RF chainrings, can’t say you see them very often.

a silver seat post will make the black headset look odd

Black seat clamp. Then the seat post matches the bars (something I'm planning to fix on my bike) and the seat clamp matches the headset and brakes

At least a 27.2 silver seatpost is much easier to source than a 27mm?

Uh uh uh. Silver seatpost but black hardware!

I'll shut up now