Chemical stripping...?

wookiee · Jun 5, 2013

Hi

I got in touch with my local powder coaters as I want to strip an alu frame of its paint, get it back to the raw metal and then polish it up. The coaters were very helpful and said that they usually leave frames in a chemical bath over night to get rid of old paint before they re coat it. They don't blast them as it can damage frames... I explained that I wanted to polish up the frame afterwards to a mirror-ish finish and he said to be away that there can be some staining left from the process but said it should be alright if I were going to polish it anyway.

My question is this...has anyone had any experience of doing this with the chemical bath rather than blasting?? Am I going to wish I had never started polishing or will I be glad I went to the effort!...my other thought was that you can get a chrome powdercoat but it is more costly....

Opinions gratefully received!

Doug

kingoffootball · Jun 5, 2013

I can't offer any help, but I'll be interested in the answers you get, as I have an aluminium frame I was considering getting chemically stripped and polishing up.

wookiee · Jun 5, 2013

kingoffootball":20q11ffq said:
I can't offer any help, but I'll be interested in the answers you get, as I have an aluminium frame I was considering getting chemically stripped and polishing up.

Well the guy at the coaters said we don't normally get asked to just strip but it would be ok to polish it up....and he only wanted £15 to do my Mount Vision frame and rear swingarm...

Rampage · Jun 5, 2013

Polishing = removing metal to get a very smooth surface.

Any 'residue' will be removed as well.

Welds can be a pain to polish without smoothing them over.

daugs · Jun 5, 2013

I used nitromors on my dean project where paint hadn't fallen off already but paint was flawed when originally done, but just fell off, am polishing up now with wet 'n' dry 1200 then probably cutting compound of some kind and polish, had a lot of issues with corrosion but interesting to do. Link to thread in sig. Comments welcome.

weeman_mtb · Jun 5, 2013

This guy had his GT dipped for polishing and seemed fairly happy with the result. Not sure whether he's finished the job because he's not posted for a bit.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=254181&start=45

Antstark · Jun 5, 2013

What about Spectrachroming?......have a look at Alex Creasys Funk at the bottom of the thread below

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... p;start=30

paddy311 · Jun 5, 2013

weeman_mtb":3b8ubjqm said:
This guy had his GT dipped for polishing and seemed fairly happy with the result. Not sure whether he's finished the job because he's not posted for a bit.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=254181&start=45

I did indeed get a GT dipped recently - and have since polished it.

I've not got any post-polish pics up yet, but will do when I start getting the reassembly done.

For ref to the OP though - the process I used was.... Chemical dip (not sure what the solution they used was, but the nasty stuff in it was Methylene Chloride based)...... this left zero paint on the frame, and a light oxidisation (very light) on there.

I did a half arsed hours work polishing the oxidisation off with autosol. Then I decided it wasn't shiny enough and machine polished it in three stages:

1) sisal mop and black heavy cutting compound,
2) then close stitched cotton mop with green medium cutting compound,
3) then 'G' mop with blue fine polishing compound.

I use a drill mounted arbor for all the mops above, and a dremel for the baby mops to get in all the nooks and crannies. It's like a mirror now and overall took about 3 hours. You can get a cheap kit with all the mops anc compounds etc from here mail order
[url=http://www.thepolishingshop.c...w.thepolishingshop.co.uk/acata ... _Kits.html[/url] I wouldn't get the really cheap one though - get the one thats £18 or therabouts. The mops are better

Go for it - it's really easy, if a little tedious

wookiee · Jun 6, 2013

paddy311":ow7y7rdg said:
weeman_mtb":ow7y7rdg said:

This guy had his GT dipped for polishing and seemed fairly happy with the result. Not sure whether he's finished the job because he's not posted for a bit.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=254181&start=45

Click to expand...

I did indeed get a GT dipped recently - and have since polished it.

I've not got any post-polish pics up yet, but will do when I start getting the reassembly done.

For ref to the OP though - the process I used was.... Chemical dip (not sure what the solution they used was, but the nasty stuff in it was Methylene Chloride based)...... this left zero paint on the frame, and a light oxidisation (very light) on there.

I did a half arsed hours work polishing the oxidisation off with autosol. Then I decided it wasn't shiny enough and machine polished it in three stages:

1) sisal mop and black heavy cutting compound,
2) then close stitched cotton mop with green medium cutting compound,
3) then 'G' mop with blue fine polishing compound.

I use a drill mounted arbor for all the mops above, and a dremel for the baby mops to get in all the nooks and crannies. It's like a mirror now and overall took about 3 hours. You can get a cheap kit with all the mops anc compounds etc from here mail order
[url=http://www.thepolishingshop.c...w.thepolishingshop.co.uk/acata ... _Kits.html[/url] I wouldn't get the really cheap one though - get the one thats £18 or therabouts. The mops are better

Go for it - it's really easy, if a little tedious

Thanks for that inspiration think I will go for it after mayhem in a couple of weeks! Thanks for the help guys ill keep you up to date on how I get on...

weeman_mtb · Jun 6, 2013

paddy311":1m7rg9jh said:
weeman_mtb":1m7rg9jh said:

This guy had his GT dipped for polishing and seemed fairly happy with the result. Not sure whether he's finished the job because he's not posted for a bit.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=254181&start=45

Click to expand...

I did indeed get a GT dipped recently - and have since polished it.

I've not got any post-polish pics up yet, but will do when I start getting the reassembly done.

For ref to the OP though - the process I used was.... Chemical dip (not sure what the solution they used was, but the nasty stuff in it was Methylene Chloride based)...... this left zero paint on the frame, and a light oxidisation (very light) on there.

I did a half arsed hours work polishing the oxidisation off with autosol. Then I decided it wasn't shiny enough and machine polished it in three stages:

1) sisal mop and black heavy cutting compound,
2) then close stitched cotton mop with green medium cutting compound,
3) then 'G' mop with blue fine polishing compound.

I use a drill mounted arbor for all the mops above, and a dremel for the baby mops to get in all the nooks and crannies. It's like a mirror now and overall took about 3 hours. You can get a cheap kit with all the mops anc compounds etc from here mail order
[url=http://www.thepolishingshop.c...w.thepolishingshop.co.uk/acata ... _Kits.html[/url] I wouldn't get the really cheap one though - get the one thats £18 or therabouts. The mops are better

Go for it - it's really easy, if a little tedious

Glad to see that you're still about Paddy. Thanks for sharing your polishing secrets and the link for that polishing kit. I cheated and paid a bloke to polish some cranks recently but that kit would soon pay for itself

.

Chemical stripping...?

wookiee

kingoffootball

wookiee

Rampage

daugs

Senior Retro Guru

weeman_mtb

Antstark

paddy311

Retro Guru

wookiee

weeman_mtb

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