j-c-c-62
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Care to share your experience and/or suggestions?
Anybody do their own small batch Alum Anodizing?
- Thread starter j-c-c-62
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, I'm interested to.j-c-c-62
Well-Known Member
I am fan of anodizing, both for reasons of looks and corrosion resistance, but small batch cost has always been a downside. I also was not keen of the potential toxicity issues. It so far seems the most worrisome chemical involved is simply regular battery acid, and I been around that for many decades. Seems like the kits available are affordable and meet my needs. Just not sure if I can achieve the desired results. Affordability will be it seems at the worse a break-even proposition.
But as with most stuff, it seems pretty straight forward, until you do it, and hence my question here.
But as with most stuff, it seems pretty straight forward, until you do it, and hence my question here.
Anodizing is the ultimate for brightwork Mopar parts, but it is darn near imposs to find a decent anodize Vendor.
We get so many brightwork polish jobs with botched anodize. Some of them, you can literally scrape it off with your fingernail.
Then there are the ones that dull out. And it is dulled out all the way thru, you can't polish it out.
We get so many brightwork polish jobs with botched anodize. Some of them, you can literally scrape it off with your fingernail.
Then there are the ones that dull out. And it is dulled out all the way thru, you can't polish it out.
I have the 14 pieces of side trim for a 67 Satellite that I need done at present, and finding a vendor is almost impossible. I found one that seemed to know what to do, but his price was like I can have new made for that money.
That's because he has to straighten and polish the trim before the anodize.
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I was told that any imperfection prior to anodizing will be magnified after. So I had the trim stripped and kept it polished. This car I might do the same.
If you can find a good dentist that is a car guy, he can take the dents out.
The worst problem I’ve had with polishing aluminum trim are pits. Some are more like mini craters. I once polished out all the interior aluminum window trim for a friends 63 427 Galaxie and the trim was pitted up like a piece of rusted steel. I would have had to grind it down to paper thickness to get all the pits out. About the only cause of this I could come up with was maybe a heavy smoker coated it with smoke/nicotine and that plus built up moisture and humidity started some sort of aluminum corrosion over several decades. I haven’t seen it much on exterior aluminum but I just did some grill opening aluminum for the same friends 66 Shelby and one piece has a dozen or so various sized pits in it. And I’ve heard the same thing about trying to anodize over oits and flaws will just magnify them.
I did my own aluminum trim repair and polish. If there are any pits they will appear as white dots and look bad. Even if they are very small. The alternative is to not anodize. Our Challenger has pieces done with and without anodizing. It was restored in 2004. The non anodized pieces look just as good. All trim is restored factory parts.
Doug
Doug
6PKRTSE
Well-Known Member
Nice, I didn't know that you had a Challenger also. I just polished and added the S.E. A63 package trim to my 70.
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