We prefer patina on our steel rigs and think it unjust to remove originality here, but turn around and buff/polish a high luster sheen to aluminum parts instead of favoring the satin like subtle tones originally created by most anodizing. Seems a bit bi-polar to me.
Nick Zatezalo Atlanta,Ga
> [Original Message]
> From: Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net>
> To: classicrendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Date: 5/13/2005 8:24:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [CR]Disadvantages of removing anodizing from aluminum parts
>
> Pete Rutledge wrote:
> >
> > If you coat the anodized part with original Easy-off Oven Cleaner for a
few
> > minutes, it will remove the anodized layer and you can go straight to
> > rubbing compound to bring up the shine. Of course you may still want
to do
> > some localized sanding (from coarse to fine) to remove gouges and
scratches.
> > Finally a good coat of wax will help retain the shine for many months.
As
> > far a originality is concerned, I prefer a shiny, scratchless, gougeless
> > unanodized (but unoriginal) aluminum part to a scratched, gouged,
chaulky
> > white but original anodized part. Quite a bit of info on the topic of
> > anodizing can be found in the CR archives.
>
>
> Great info Pete!
>
> After removing the anodizing (chrome shops the also did anodizing used
> to do this for free) I would use Swiss pattern files to "profile" the
> parts. This involved removing the mold parting lines and any waviness
> in the surfaces of the parts till they looked like the original idea of
> the part the manufacturer had in mind in the first place. Very tedious
> work but the result spoke for itself!
>
> Chuck Schmidt
> South Pasadena, CA
>
> .