16Victor

Had these Gran Compe levers with typical damage, waiting to be put on the scrap pile and figured they were worth an attempt at saving.


After a fair bit of filing, sanding, and polishing. The goal wasn't to make these showpieces but to see if home anodizing could provide good enough results for a good restoration.


After anodizing and sealing. I didn't dye these, just sealed them in hot water. Not bad...kinda milky though.


They're shinier than they appear.


Threw in an scrap Campy Record hub (spoke hole was broken out).


Will have to do more reading and adjusting acid concentration, power, etc. Results look promising!

SJX426 

Looks encouraging! Keep playing!

qcpmsame 

You did a great job or working out these scrapes and polishing them up, prior to the anodization process. That is some nice work on sanding and filing those levers after seeing the before picture and the damage that was there. The blending and smoothing are dang near perfect, that helps big time when you anodize them.

I cannot pick up any stray finger or hand prints in the after pictures either, some friends that attempted to anodize motorcycle parts for color matching aluminum were frustrated with the telegraphing of any smudge or fingerprint that was present as the part went into the fluid.

Lastly, did you do the boiling, after you went through the electrolysis part?

Bill

16Victor

Thanks Bill.

Looking closely, you can see spots where I didn't sand out every ding. That wasn't negligence, it was just me getting them good enough for this first trial. I'll still probably scrap them.

Also, now that I look in the light of day, I can see places where my lye bath didn't remove all the old anodizing in places I didn't sand. Easy fix for next time.

I have to work on my power supply and/or concentration...they are related, as well as surface area of workpieces and cathodes (lead, in my case). The battery charger tripped it's breaker at 12V 6A so I had to knock it down to 6V (my big charger is on the fritz so I have to use my MIG or a lab power supply I have laying around next time).

Lastly, I had to move my anodize bucket into a pail of cold water to keep control over the rising acid temp.

I low boiled them for 40 minutes in distilled water.

All in all, a great education and the results were promising enough to refine the tank with a bubble agitator, temp control, and different cathode setup.

qcpmsame 

I could pick out only a couple places with gouges deeper than what you had worked to, but leaving them at the point you got to is better than having a larger, and possibly deeper valley in the surface. My eyes are really my downfall right now, but I even enlarged the pictures and still your work is not too shabby at all.
@Drillium Dude had a thread with detailed instructions and tips on repairing scrapes and scratches on parts, if you haven't already read it you should give it a read. I used his tips to work on several parts over the last 18 months, to good results. https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...g-sanding.html He also references his treatises on Stripping Anodization, and Drillium How To. Good stuff, if you haven't already scoped them out.

Bill

jeirvine 

Nice work. You could go into business re-anodizing C-Record cranks, which show every scratch and rub, but are pretty easy to polish.

rhm

Looks good to me!

gugie 

So now we have a freewheel rebuilder, a saddle remaker, a few torches, and now an anodizer "in-house". We need a painter/powder coater.

The complete "BF" bike is now my holy grail!

SJX426 

Count me in too! I think we may well have a number of painters, just not completely open to doing the work, which is a lot! PC would be great if we could have a resource that was as good as Figure Finishing in Manasas VA. They were so good that the Navy consumed them as a sub contractor.

16Victor

Remind me not to tell you that I work in a CNC R&D lab and have my own mill and lathe.

howellhandmade

Interesting! I'm teetering on the edge of home anodizing myself. From what I read, buffing after sealing will remove the milky coating. I also read about a "de-smut" bath just before anodizing. Finally, I got a pamphlet by the guy who runs anodizeworld.com in Toronto. Totally not worth what he charges, very incomplete, but he recommends titanium as a cathode rather than lead or aluminum.

16Victor

I've seen his site but the contents are lost in the pile of other info in my head. I did desmut with nitric acid.

I'll try polishing, thanks.

AFA trying it - it's not trivial, but go for it!

Lucky for me, we do R&D on machining Ti, so I'll grab some from the scrap pile.

howellhandmade

I meant to type, "NOT worth what he charges." I will give it a go, I just like to work out all the details before I jump. Handy on the titanium scrap, every place I've visited that machines titanium controls scrap pretty closely. I bought a variable DC power supply which, hopefully, will remove at least some guesswork. Did you start with battery acid before dilution, or a higher concentration? My plan is to use lye to de-smut, dealing with one type of acid bath is enough.

16Victor

Unfortunately our Ti scrap is rod; not sure there will be enough surface area. Al or Pb will always work.

I used sulfuric acid bought as a drain cleaner from Menards. SDS said it was 85% so I diluted to the required concentration (C1V1=C2V2).

Nitric acid to desmut, diluted from 85% IIRC.

Next time I'll do everything a little better - sand, polish, de-anodize, degrease, desmut. It's like painting - all in the prep. What my trial taught me is that there are no shortcuts if you're picky.

gugie 

Too late!

What CAD files do you accept?

exmechanic89

Looks good to me too, OP.