Alu Anodising - Removal

[Haggis]

Hello chums

I'm getting a VFR800 ready for winter hacking. It came with 'orrible yellow/gold anodising on the otherwise decent levers...

I decided to get rid of the colour and give the well known 'oven cleaner' trick a go....

After 5 mins, something's happening....

After 20 mins, getting there...

After 40 mins, happy days!...

The process is well documented on t'internet, but twas nice to prove to myself it works.

HTH, Paul H

 

[2622]

I put a set of Gold line calipers in my ultrasonic cleaner once for only 5 minutes and it stripped the coating off them damn.......then I discovered that the gold they use these days aint the same bugger me.

 

[Haggis]

Whoops Brett, did you get them back to gold?

Should point out that the Mr Muscle was manuf in 2002! Lord knows if the recipe has changed since then.

 

[Davo]

Mr Muscle contains caustic soda, which, for those that don't know, is used in the processing of alumina to extract the aluminium. Basically dissolves the stuff, so what you have done is not just remove the anodising but also a layer of aluminium. Ask my wife about the effects of caustic soda on aluminium - she decided to make soap in an aluminium pan 

 

[Haggis]

Hiya Davo

Yes, I was very cautious about that. The levers were removed from the cleaner at 5+10+5+5+10+5 minutes, so I could inspect and gauge the point at which the anodising was gone (but no more). The last 5 minutes nailed it. The levers are fully CNC machined and I can still see the cutter marks in the alu, clear and sharp.

Re the Mrs and her chemical ineptitude.... I am a Brit, what is soap?

P

 

[2622]

Whoops Brett, did you get them back to gold?

Yeh they are gold again but its a different shade... bit more golden than they should be if that makes sense.

Still there on the Cico so as the rest of the bike already puts rivet counters in a head spin doesn't really matter that the calipers are not the correct colour.. they still work thats the main thing.

 

[breganzane]

Getting anodising colour exactly right seems rather a hit and miss affair, at least according to my anodiser.  Probably more to the point is that you need everything exactly the same in order to get the same colour, and there are a lot of variables.
Brembo's gold colour (and their black for that matter) has had a lot of versions over the years.