Here's a photo.



In front, Wolber Modele 58. It has not been cleaned, polished, or anything.

Middle, Mavic MA2 with silver anodized finish. It has not been cleaned, polished, or anything.

In back, Mavic MA2 with the anodized finish removed. This is after a bath in Drano (lye/sodium hydroxide), rinse with water, polish with fine steel wool, followed by Brasso. After that I did a partial wet sanding with 1500 grit sandpaper, again followed by Brasso; where I did this, the finish improved very gradually.

I'm pretty sure extensive wet sanding will be the only way to smooth the surface to the mirror-like finish of the Wolber rim, though I imagine 600 grit will be fine enough at least for most of the work. Not that I'm convinced it's worth the effort.

At this point, my question is: will the Wolber and the de-anodized Mavic rims weather in more or less the same way, resulting in a gradually increasing match? Or will they weather differently, and start looking more different from one another over time?