Alternative to Bright Dip Anodizing Trim

jeff alder said
sorry for the confusion. For me it's all one process due to being in that manufacturing setting for so long. Bright dipping gives it it's shine and anodizing adds the corrosion protection after it is dipped. If you dull it down evenly and then polish it you would not have to remove the bright dip coating. (unless the piece was not properly anodized after the dipping which has caused defects in the bright dip finish). If that has happened you can strip the finish and polish the aluminum. If the extruder used an inferior grade aluminum rather than the 1000 grade your results will not be nearly as good.

That makes sense. Thank you. At this point, it's just not worth it to me to have them re-anodized. They've already been stripped completely. I did that because the were pretty rough and needed to be straightened and cleaned up. Now, I'm merely looking for something I can coat the trim with to protect the bare polished aluminum. Sounds like some type of wax or clear coat would work.

Super-Cuda said
I have done numerous aluminum parts using Easy-Off to strip the anodized finish. Here' what I did.

1. Strip the parts by leaving the easy off on them for several hours. You will see the parts dull out as the cleaner works.

2. Wash the parts thoroughly to clean away excess easy off.

3. Fix dings, sand down parts using paper grades from 400 to 2000

4. Use a sisal buffing pad mounted on a bench grinder and start with red compound stick, move to green and then finish with white.

5. Buff using 3m compound and final finish

6. Protect with a good paste wax. I used McGuiers.

Here's what I used.

Sisal Pads

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Compound sticks

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3m Rubbing Compound

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3m Ultra Fine finish compound

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Heres my Grill parts after easy off and sanding

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Finished product.

Tried Clear coat but it started to yellow so I removed it and re-polished . All that's on it now is wax and the grills look as good as the day I installed them.

I would estimate that I have at least 50-70 hours into refinishing these parts to this level.

Hope this helps!!

Cheers!

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Thanks for the write-up. That's more or less the process I've been using. What kind of wax did you use?