Anodizing parts...
 

I'm blessed to live in Portland Or where we have 3 or more anodizers within 20 minutes of my house.

I've heard some of y'all using easy off to remove anodizing.

Hard pass. Stuff stinks. I already got in trouble recently for cleaning the inside of my 1962 Vespa GS gas tank the old fashioned way. Putting a cup of nuts, bolts, screws and wrapping it up in an old blanket. Gaffer tape the bejesus out of it and toss it in the dryer (no heat).

Sweetie swears she can smell gas in the clothes now. She is wrong. (I have a highly trained beak)

Doesn't matter. Keep em happy!!

I have always handed some bits to the anodizers and waited no more than 5 min while they dip the bits and bring them out raw aluminum.

Take this Cinelli stem with Davidson panto'd on each side.

UGLY!!

I hardly had time to read the first 4 times’ top restaurants when they called me up.

No charge. They know my method and how after some sanding and polishing, I’ll bring it back right away.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1e44cdea71.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...45873db455.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3c7a1606d1.jpg

I used some hair dissolving drain cleaner. Really, anything with lye in it works, including lye mixed with water. Liquid plumber.


How much to re-anodize? Back to black or silver? Can you or they mask the panto?

5 min + free
zero chemicals

not sure why you wouldn’t.

The panto: depends on the paint. I bought a black DeRosa stem once. It came back shiny except for the paint which was still there.

This Davidson had white paint in the panto

its all gone/clean

filling in panto is easy with testor’s paint. Wipe off the excess.

haven’t decided on whether to return it to black or make it silver. All my bikes are silver but I don’t own a Davidson.

this will go with a whole basket of things since there is a $40 min.

last time I did 2 stems, cranks, seat posts, handlebars and a front derailleur and they guy said I could have added more.

All the stuff I have stripped didn't get re-anodized, so the free stripping service was unavailable. But that's cool you have places to go.

Interesting that the paint survives stripping and anodizing. So you can probably use paint as a mask if you wanted to leave a pattern or logo flush to the surface, or keep a panto silver.

my Derosa stem is simply polished. looks keen.

If I have to use diesel fuel at work for asphalt I swear I can smell it in the laundry for weeks. doesn't matter if I get it on me or not, I just feel like I can smell it.

I had rinsed out the tank with water. Then dawn, then more water.

There was no smell before it went in.

The nuts/bolts/screws came out smelling clean.

after doing three runs with a local anodizer in Brooklyn, NYC, I don't see myself doing it again. I brought them batches of stems, seat posts, seat post clamps, cranks and bar ends. I did one batch of red, one blue and one clear. The issue I ran into is surface prep. I put a ton of time into it, with buffers, polishing wheels, etc. and most of the parts still came back with matte finishes. I didn't get the bright shiny finish the way factory anodized stuff looks. The clear stuff did have a nice satin finish. "Never say never" and I may do another anodizing batch in the future, but unlikely.