Is that a thing? I love anything anodized. I think bike frames would look epic anodized.

Anyone done it? Seen it?

I have worked in a factory that anodised aluminium; this is a process with lots of chemicals, DC electricity and time consuming.
I don't know what you want, but I made a webpage about frames and their final treatments

Greetz, Wiel

Oh thats a good page Wiel. Checked it out will read later. Thank you!

It was common in the days of bonded frames. Vitus, Alan, Raleigh and others had a selection of bright colored tubes glued to painted or clear anodized lugs.

Anodizing a whole welded frame may be an issue because the welds may take color differently than the tubes, leading to a messy look. I can't recall ever seeing a bright red or blue welded frame or even stem.

It was an option on Santa Cruz bikes for a time. You could order a ton of different finishes back in the day, anodizing being one option. I think that was when everything was still being made in the US Kenesis factory. If I recall it was actually referred to as Portland anodizing inc., or something like that.

They have a pretty heavy textured bead blast finish, so tend to look dirty. They hold up well though, just need a bunch of bike lust spray or pledge to look shiny and clean. I can't remember if you could order polished+anodized. I wouldn't be surprised, you could order all sort of weird combinations of frame/swingarm finishes.

The welding filler metal is a different alloy than the main tubes and would possibly anodize a different shade depending on the filler used to weld it. 7005 frames are generally welded with 5356 filler and the charts I've seen say it will match when anodized. 6061 frames are generally welded with 4043 filler and the weld would anodize darker than the rest of the frame. The chart says that a 6061 frame welded with 5356 filler would match, so you would have to know what filler is used on the frame you want to anodize.

Anodized titanium is a whole realm of opportunities for differentiating your product; look at Firefly for example. I bet when you say anodizing though, you're thinking of aluminum, amiright?

Whether Ti or Al, it's all style over substance IMHO, and I include paint on steel in that too, except paint at least protects (somewhat) against rust. But the obsessing about "colorways" leaves me cold.

I do realize that puts me at odds with 95% of the bike-buying public though! "To each his zone"

Stanton Bikes

Thats an awesome video STR. Watching that Titanium frame come out of the box naked got me to thinking....anyone ever seen an unfinished aluminum or Titanium polished frame?

Many (some?) of the early Alu MTBs and BMX (Race Inc for example) bikes were anodized. I have done some small parts in my shop but results have been hit and miss. Simple parts have come out well but hub shells were a mess. I think it has to do with how you calculate surface area to set amps/volts. Having them professionally done seems reasonable. A full frame isn't reasonable to do at home.

Too bad this isn't the mid-1990's - the OP woulda loved the days of the 3-DV purple craze, LOL.

I remember throwing so many of those CNC anodized parts in the trash when the owners upgraded to something that actually "worked" - i.e. Deore XT and XTR.

The few things I did save sold well on Ebay 10-15 years ago.

Sure, plenty. Expensive, and shows scratches, and both Ti and alu oxidize and get dull after awhile. So, not popular.
One place I worked offered full polish as an option for our custom Ti frames, but hardly anyone took us up on it after learning the pros and cons.

One of the prettiest frames I ever saw was Gary Helfrich's Arctos, that he took to Interbike to advertise his Ti framebuilding classes. He'd smoothed all the welds down to the most perfect fillets you ever saw, and polished the whole frame to a mirror. It looked like liquid mercury made solid somehow. Tapered stays (super rare in Ti up until then), perfectly blended into the dropouts. And it weighed 1.0 kg. It sure worked on me, because I did sign up for his class, maybe '92? Listmember Doug Fattic also took the class, a year before me. Gary taught us his system for smoothing the welds and polishing, so I know how labor-intensive it is. Stems are do-able, but polishing a whole frame is just crazy.

It's easier in alu due to being softer, less grunt work to get down below the scratches. I've seen some Cannondales and some BMXers that were polished, usually not to perfection because that last 5% to get to perfect is more work than the first 95%, so a sensible person stops when it's "good enough". The negative is that alu oxidizes and gets dull faster, so unless you re-polish periodically, you get less benefit from all that hard work. Al alloy is not nearly as corrosion-resistant as Ti, so without protection of some kind, alu eventually turns to dust, some alloys faster than others. So anodizing or paint are a must for alu frames if you want a lifetime frame.

Ti does not corrode away like alu. It gets a tightly-adhering oxide layer that prevents further oxidation, so after an initial period of getting duller (after polishing), it reaches an equilibrium and the look doesn't change much after that. But that look is a bit dull, disappointing to some customers who paid all that extra for polishing. So, bang for buck, a scotchbrite finish is much cheaper, and looks decent long-term. Media blasting is even cheaper but it's no one's favorite, looks ugly when new and even worse when it gets dirty. Grime gets down in the pits from blasting and stays there, hard to get it ever looking clean again.

Some people clear-coat over polished frames but that gets into a whole 'nuther set of problems like yellowing, scratched or flaking paint that looks like crap after a couple years, or corrosion spreading under the paint where you can see it but can't do anything about it.

That's all the long way of saying "there's good reasons you don't see polished frames very often".

Oh I get it. Back in the 70s we all had mini bikes and the frames were multi color candy apple paint jobs by a local well known car painter Yosemite Same. Grew up around car guys and drag racers. I am....admittedly stuck in the 80s actually.....lol

Thanks for the reply. I agree with everything you said. Even yellowing on coated polished material. I wonder if clear powder coat would yellow....hmmmm IDK

I love looking at welding porn as I call it. Ive worked with some very good well known fabricators and welders and the way they lay down beautiful dimes. Its porn ....lol

I also like wire loom porn but thats a different story.

I spent an hour last night drooling over some affordable custom polished aluminum wheels from a local company last night called Velocity Wheels. Knowing Id be a fool to put them on my bike. lol

But man it would look so cool and retro badass. I love chrome and polished naked metal.

"I love chrome and polished naked metal." Pro Stock

And this is why some of us spend so much time and money on frame making. We get to choose what our rides look like. Andy

I had a factory polished Litespeed Classic. The finish looked good for the 6 years I owned it.

This company will polish your Ti bike from scratch. I recall hearing a very affordable rate for this a few years ago:
https://www.mirrorfinishpolishing.co...18.html#nogo53

The interesting though is that if you go into a bike store these days your choices are often between grey, dark grey, or black. But when I make someone a frame and ask them to pick colours from the Montana chart for the "good from far, far from good" paint job they're going to be getting, they go for something like a bright orange and electric blue mix. So I'm not sure the bike-buying public really want they're getting all the time!