Anodized Grille - how to strip the anodizing

[mikewegener]

Hi Tom
You can cut through the anodizing with a product that has been around forever. Turtle Wax Chrome Polish in the white and green bottle has enough grit in it to do the job. Being that harsh it is really not recommended to clean your chrome...
Once you are at bare aluminum Autosol Chrome Polish works wonders on the aluminum. It has chemical ingredients that remove the harder alu oxidation and it very much recommended by me for all alloys. Again not a good product for Chrome as it does not really do as good a job as other chrome cleaners. Always seems to leave a milky haze.
Learned about the Turtle Wax cleaner by accident as I ruined a Chrysler 300 door applique that was anodized and the Autosol is keeping my motorcycles looking good.
Hope this helps
Mike

[tyang]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the note. Having some experience polishing a grille , taking 3553's grille completely apart to remove the anodizing and polish could take longer than there is time before Cavallino! We'll have to save this project for another time, if ever.

Tom

[Keith Milne]

We also use - believe it or not - oven cleaner to strip anodizing from motorcycle wheels. Spray it on, leave it out in the sun (obviously hard to do this time of year!). It turns the anodizing black and comes right off with water and a light scrubbing.

Keith

[330GT]

Caswell Plating has an anodizing kit which include an anodize stripper. Look at http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/aluminum.htm. The instructions are in a PDF file that can be downloaded. Basically, mix 4-6 ounces/gal water. Soak part 20 seconds to 10 minutes as needed. Test using a ohm-meter. Anodized aluminum is non-conductive, so once you have conductivity across various points, you are done.

I don't know what is in the stripper but it's available separately, $45 for enough to make 3 gallons of solution. For long items like grill pieces, I used a capped PVC pipe of sufficient diameter, fill it with solution and submerge the piece.

I've found that sanding or any mechanical method is fraught with problems. Mainly, the anodizing is so hard compared to the underlying aluminum. Once you have gone through the coating, there is a tendency to continue to wear away the aluminum in that area, so you end up with a dished surface.