To polish or not to polish? That is the question...

Grease Monkey

Senior Retro Guru
Feedback
View
In regard to these polished and engraved chainsets: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=272056

Surely if you remove the anodising from a Campagnolo chainset you
are A: exposing it to salt and air degradation and B: mechanically weakening
its integral structure.

I remember polished chainsets of old - snapping round about the pedal
hole. No thanks!
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

Campag anodising I've seen can rub off with nothing more than a dirty look at times. I've got one pair of 600 Tricolore cranks on my 'daily driver' that I had polished by MDT about 12 years ago - been rebuffed twice since then and still going strong.
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

If I had cranks that shiny I'd be cleaning & polishing them after every ride :cool: but I can't imagine salt & air would be an issue TBH :?
 
tels busy

I've had several sets of TA cranks, the pre 1980 ones, all unanodized, they were
famous for failing at the pedal hole. And failing catastrophically. I actually saw it happen, rider went straight over the handlebars.


Ever since they started anodizing them - virtually 100% perfect. Anodizing is there
for a purpose: not only to protect against salt, corrosion and air tarnishing (which is substantial) but as a strengthening finish.

Ask yourself this: how many modern rims do you see without an anodised finish?
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

Fair points but I wouldn't be surprised if most of these blinged up Campagnolo bikes ended up as wall decoration anyway. ;)

I always loved the matt finish of my original Campagnolo Record fitted Colnago but these finishes look amazing.
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

They're like a lot of these fashions: panto, drillium ect.- they take something that has been manufactured to fine engineering tolerances, especially mechanical tolerance, and fiddle about with it.

Cranks and handlebars are generally made as light as can be mechanically safe.
I wouldn't ride unanodised versions of either for that reason. Would you want to be
bowling along, getting out of the saddle and then *crack*...

Campagnolo Record and C Record cranks are not exactly 'over engineered'
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

I was just reading a few weeks back about how over engineered Campy's high end stuff is funnily enough... then they shave off whatever they can get away with!
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

Like I said, if all you want is a Flash finish fair enough. But as with drillium and laser pantograph - you pays your money, you takes your risks! *)
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

Can components be polished to remove scratches, pitting etc and then re anodised afterwards?

I'm looking for a C Record aero seatpin to go with a new Athena groupset and am resigned to having to restore a used one rather than finding a NOS one for less than the price of a kidney.

Whilst I'm now somewhat concerned about the potential that a polished seatpin may be more likely to fail and impale me via my rusty sherrif's badge, I'm more concerned about the mismatch between the highly polished seatpin and the anodised groupset!

Any advice or suggestions as to who could re anodise components would be appreciated.

Thanks

Scott
 
Re: Campagnolo Chainset Engraving and polishing service offe

C-Record seatpostvwas never anodised...
 
Back
Top