Bianchi84

EDIT: Just realized similar post above mine. Lattice of Coincidence!
Maybe anodized is not the right word, but... i have a set of NOS Mavic Open SUP rims which have a "matte" or dull aluminum finish. I'm replacing my old Mavic Ceramics since the ceramic after 30 years is glazing and chipping.
I want to " polish" these rims if possible to satisfy the magpie in me. Has anyone had success in doing this? I cleaned the rims up with Mother's polish but didn't want to go nuts with it for fear of ruining the braking surface. Still not too shiny.
Any ideas or warnings? Again, it's more of an aesthetic thing.
Thanks!

base2 

You can't polish anodized aluminum. It just doesn't work. To polish, you'll need to strip the anodizing off back down to raw untreated metal. From there, go to town with your favorite wax based polish of choice.

You can strip anodizing with a 6oz per gallon solution of Lye and water. When you see the surface bubble in a minute or 2, remove the item from solution & scrub clean. It's really easy to over do it and end up with a burnt orange patina. So, if anything err on the light side and repeat if necessary.

Oven cleaner is too harsh. I do not recommend. Drain cleaner crystals *may* work, but I'm not convinced it's consistant in it's (probably unregulated) manufacture for reliable concentration or there is not contaminates that would be fine for sink drains but not other home projects. Soap maker supply places like Brambleberry have food grade lye that you would use for soap, obviously. But also, bagels, pretzels, and other similar goods. I trust the food grade lye for my home deanodizing projects.

Rims are pretty big, you'd have to work pretty fast and any blemishes would be pretty obvious. I'm not sure that's a project I'd take on.

jdawginsc 

I have found Quick-Glo Polish does a nice job of making anodized surfaces nicer. Weird. Might be the wax in substrate thing going on there.

unworthy1

Red Devil Lye is sold as a drain cleaner but unlike Draino it's just lye (no aluminum chunks or other bulk to "help" with a clog, AFAIK).
I have the opposite idea which is that lye is extremely hazardous to handle (Old clothes that give full coverage, heavy gloves and face, not just eye, protection are all must-haves) whereas most Oven Cleaners have a low concentration of lye along with surfectants and perfume since these are expected to be used "in a home kitchen by civilians".
Nevertheless I'd use them with all the above protection as well, and whatever you chose do it outside!

When your project is stripped of all anodizing and if wet-sanding is not required I'd use a buffing wheel with compounds to make quick work of it, also something you need to wear eye protection with and a respirator is a good idea, too. Final step is a polish that provides high shine and some protection, but wax is great until it's gone: if you don't keep your shine waxed it will corrode especially quickly if you live near salt water

plonz 

Absolutely possible. What you need to do depends on what you have and what you want.

1. Silver anodized rim that you want to polish but not necessarily high-polish. The difference being the former keeps the anodizing and a satiny silver finish. The latter removes the anodizing and looks like chrome. When keeping the anodizing, I use a cleaner like Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish and clean by hand. This removes the dirt and gives the silver finish a nice luster.
2. Silver anodized rim you want to high polish. This one is a fair amount of work. You must first remove the anodizing and then buff to a high polish. I’ve had no problems using Easy Off oven cleaner to remove anodizing. You can theoretically get a high-polish by hand using several stages of wet sanding and a polish, that just seems like a lot of work on a rim. I use a buffing wheel to get them to a mirror finish.
3. Non-anodized aluminum rim. Same as #2 with the anodizing removed. Doesn’t always have to be a mirror-like finish either. You can experiment with wet sanding, scratch pads and polish to get the right amount of matte vs shine.

Have fun!

Bianchi84

Thank you for all the replies. The rims are clean, just satiny. I'll live with how they are. Seems like a lot of work to get to "shiny" especially since I just finished building them into wheels.

repechage

I am always apprehensive to attack the anodizing layer if there are steel or stainless steel eyelets. The stainless will take the abrasion, the plated will not.
‘not many have stainless steel.

Robvolz 

All this home stuff is daunting. I can not comment on your location, but Portland has several anodizing locations, and for a few bucks will dunk whatever part you have and strip it for you to decide what to do next. Maybe your town has something like that too.

repechage

as many rims have eyelets, I am pretty sure assemblies with mixed metals are not what a plating or anodizing house wants to touch.
all that I knew of way back needed to remove races as an example from hubs to have them anodized. One could have Martano rims anodized as they did not use eyelets or washers at the time, one did have to remove the graphics prior.

delbiker1 

My opinion is that’s a good choice to leave them as is. Get gloss rims if that is truly what you want. You may not even notice the lack of gloss after a while. That’s how it usually works for me. I think my brain loses that first perspective, then sees the item a bit differently.

jdawginsc 

I think they look fantastic! Two rides in, you appreciate anodization on aluminum parts.

dddd

I've gone over aged anodized parts like stems, even "satin"-finished parts, using polishing compound and with excellent results, but it took a lot of polishing effort (pressure and repetition).

I noticed that the effort had more effect initially, as the polishing seemed to affect the non-shiny finish more quickly, but requiring progressively more time to achieve more affect.
Pulling a cloth into a sort of rope across the surface can speed things up.

Dark-anodized stems can be polished clear, leaving an intact anodizing layer.
I polished a rough-looking, smoke-anodized TTT stem (that didn't match my bike's vintage) and it looks much better now on my Bianchi Nuovo Racing. The lengthy effort was done in-situ between my mild weight-lifting intervals over some weeks as I recall.

An eyeletted rim, especially in a built wheel, is going to take a lot of effort, but if the rim needs deep cleaning anyway then I say do so using heavier-duty rubbing compound, perhaps followed by the polishing compound. This might make good sense if you just want one rim to better match the other, shinier one.

Titanium frames offer a similar example of how the finish can be brightened greatly using the polishing compounds, but with the expected good amount of time/effort of the sort that a cup of coffee on a rainy day might elicit (why my bikes look the way they do, I consider this to be one form of exercise just like yesterday's annual scrubbing of the old truck that lives outside).

It makes sense also to use a dust mask or work outside in the breeze, as cotton fibers, aluminum and silica aren't good for the lungs.