[CR] polishing aluminum parts

(Example: Framebuilding:Technology)

From: "Charles Andrews" <chasds@mindspring.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:02:23 -0800
Subject: [CR] polishing aluminum parts


Mark Stonich was quoted:

Mark Stonich followed: "Once I polished up some old Campi high flange hubs with Simichrome and followed up with a coat of NuFinish polymer based car polish. Stayed so shiny that 3-4 years later I overheard, "Look, some idiot chromed his Campi hubs." ".

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someone else opined that polishing your non-anodized aluminum parts was not a good thing to do.

I really have to differ. The idiot Mark quoted above didn't know what he was talking about. One of the coolest bikes I ever saw was a Masi Prestige owned by Rex Gephart. He had chromed all the aluminum parts, and lemme tell you, it looked TOTALLY bitchin'.

If you don't want to chrome your campy parts (although after seeing that bike, I've been tempted), mirror polishing is the next best thing, and if I have the time and patience, one day, I'm going to do exactly that on at least one bike. Remove all the anodizing, and polish the bejeebers out of 'em.

The one problem with having too many bikes is I can't really hot-rod any one of them easily. I spread a little time over many of them, instead of concentrating on one or two. Yet another good reason to thin the herd.

Charles Andrews Los Angeles

"everyone has elites; the important thing is to change them from time to time."

--Joseph Schumpeter, via Simon Johnson