You are reading a single comment by @mattioats and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
Had been wondering about adding a bit of shine to an anodised hub too. As mine is a dynamo hub and so can't really be disassembled, is there any point of polishing without removing the anodising, or is that not going to get very far?
mattioats-
is there any point of polishing without removing the anodising
No. You can polish to remove anodising, but your basic surface finish is fixed at the anodising stage and you won't get shinier until you've abraded the oxide layer off and are back to bare metal. Bare aluminium alloy doesn't look pretty for long when exposed to cycling anyway.
gbj_tester
Oven Pride, plastic takeaway box or large glass jar, long rubber gloves and a mildly abrasive pad like a kitchen scourer...
Disassemble, clean, degrease & rinse the part you're working on, pour the OP over the hub shell (doesn't need to be submerged, just coated), leave a couple of mins, give hub a rub with the pad to help etch the surface and accelerate remaining removal, put it back and repeat as necessary until the surface of the part is a dull grey (the OP coating the surface of the hub will uniformly turn a soapy white colour). Then rinse clean and maybe submerge in a weak acidic solution (water + white vinegar) to neutralise any leftover OP. Should take 5-10 mins depending on how good the ano was.
Then, fine steel wool or a Scotchbrite pad, some metal polish and a rag to polish. A cordless drill also makes DIY 'hand' polishing much faster/easier, if you're able to lock the hub shell to the drill chuck with a dummy axle.
Once polished, some hubs tarnish or corrode more readily than others (depends on alloy), but as Mack offered a factory polished option, yours will prob be fine.
EDIT: If you're stingy like me, you can pour the OP back into the bottle for later re-use. It loses some viscosity but still works well enough for stripping ano.