De-anodizing and Polishing Aluminum

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sweetdiesel

aka SouRGassssssss
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On my latest RC project I decided to de-anodize all of the purple parts to reveal the bare metal finish. Personally I like the look of bare metal better over a colored part. Many of you are familiar with the oven cleaner method of stripping off anodizing but in this article I’ll cover the often talked about Greased Lightning method for those who have not used it before. After stripping off the anodizing I will also go over one of the methods of polishing the bare aluminum part to a mirror shine.

So let’s get started.

For de-anodizing you will need the following items:
  • Greased Lightning Cleaner – available in either spray bottle or gallon at your local home improvement store.
  • A few large paper clips and binder clips
  • Plastic container that is large enough to completely submerge your part
  • Green Scotch Brite pads
  • Denatured Alcohol

Click to continue reading
 

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Nice review.
I might use these tips just to get my alminum parts polished up.
 
Great info SD! I have one question, what does the bottle of Greased Lightning look like, I have looked for it before and can't find it.
 
Thanks Guys!

Smaxxin the bottle of Greased Lightning looks like this. I buy mine by the gallon at Homedepot in the household cleaner aisle.

IMG_1037.jpg


Good luck and post pics of your results.
 
Very good tutorial!
 
another great product to remove ano is draino kitchen crystals. it takes literally seconds to remove the ano. I just mixed some up in warm water and toss the parts in, giggle it around and in most cases the ano is gone in sixty seonds.

then to polish hit them with 600, 800, 1000, 1500 sand paper, but dont waste alot of time sanding it goes fast, then simply polish them on a grinder with buffing wheel using red or white rouge. I polished my whole baja in basically a day, stopping here and there to do other junk around the house, and it turnd out like mirrors!

If someone has already posted this my apologies!
 
man look great I had good luck with crystal draino!!!!!worked in a few min..
 
this is a great thread i was just getting ready to take apart 2 savage's for purple ano removal and bring to the local plating shop but now i will try these leads first
 
I finally got around to trying this, the greased lightning works like a charm! I didn't polish to a shine because they will get beat up but I did hit them with some 0000 steel wool to get them nice and clean.

Before
skid.jpg


skid-1.jpg


During...I used fishing string to hold it off of the bottom. They took 4 minutes each.
skid-2.jpg


After
skid-4.jpg


skid-3.jpg


Excellent how to thread SD, thanks!
 
Last edited:
Thanks for pulling that thread up, SMaxxin. That's some good info I never heard before. Looks like it works very well, even without the polish.
 
I like them better with that satin finish look anyway.

I have always used Easy Off, but I may just give that stuff a try next time.
 
Looks great Smaxxin!
 
i used that greased lightning to get my revo chassis parts to silver a few years back. it worked like a charm. something that polishes up the aluminum nicely too is...

nevr_dull_300.JPG


it's like... a tin full of wadding. you pull of some pieces and go to town. it's great. in the near future, i'm actually going to polish up my chassis and some other parts, and spray paint them with a clear lacquer. i'll post the stuff here... :)
 
uhhhh... i'm trying to do this again. not working!!

they're golden horizon parts, i believe. the parts have been sitting in the GL for the past half hour... just as blue as they started out. they're clean!! but still blue, lol.

what's going on here? ideas? small plastic coating on the outside, maybe?
 
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