Originally Posted by omijay

I have looked at a number ot of these recipes form removing anadizing on the forum, and decided there had to be a safer way to do this where I did not expose myself to a bunch of caustic fumes in either my house or my garage. I am a chemist so I ran several tries on some old pieces in my lab.

Here is a detailed version of what I came up with recently after reading someone else's post a few years back about a general description of using sodium hydroxide and vinegar.

It involves two baths and the size of the bath will depend on the size of your parts you are stripping
.
1) Make an appropriate size bath of 5% w/v Sodium hydroxide- This is 5 grams per every 100 ml or 50 grams for every liter (4 cups). You can buy a pound (454 grams) of sodium hydroxide on Amazon for $12.99. So that is enough to make more or less 40 cups of the solution.
2) Make a similar size bath of vinegar, which is essentially 5-10% acetic acid. I used 10% acetic acid, but not everyone has acetic acid at their disposal. So household vinegar is a simpler solution
3) Place the part(s) in the sodium hydroxide bath for 1 minute (You will see bubbles forming don't panic, it will not explode, but there will be some heat generated)
4) Transfer the part to the acetic acid bath for 1 minute.
5) Rinse with cold water and rub with a rag to clean.
6) Place the part a second time in the sodium hydroxide bath for 1 minute.
7) Place the part a second time in the acetic acid bath for 1 minute.
8) Rinse with cold water and rub with a rag to clean.

Notes:
1) There are no fumes to worry about breathing in.
2) I would wear some plastic gloves
3) You can reuse the solutions several times, but you might want to store them in a sealed bottle. Particles will settle on the bottom so you can decant them away
4) Plan on polishing a lot if you strip the parts. Maintaining beautiful shiny bike parts requires work.