I know this subject has been beat to death, but I'm trying to remove the anodizing from the aluminum mouldings on my 63 Galaxie with the over cleaner method so I can then polish it. It does not work at all. I'm using Walmart brand oven cleaner (which may be the problem). I checked and it does contain sodium hydroxide. I have experimented with the time and done everything from leaving it on for 5 minutes, to two days. Same result every time: anodizing is still there and just as intact. What am I doing wrong? Is there a particular brand that I should be using? When I research this, I see that half the people that have tried it say it worked perfectly, and the other half are like me and say it doesn't work.
I've seen oven cleaner used, ( Easy Off), but have seen ( and had) better luck with Red Devil Lye. It's used as a drain cleaner. Last I used it was 6-7 years ago, and you have to experiment on your mixture strength. I used a section of vinyl rain gutter for a house, that way you don't have to mix a lot of product. Support your rain gutter well on 2 or 3 saw horses, so that it will not twist on you under the weight of the liquid. Adjust your mixture strength on a small piece of trim first, like a door handle bezel, or a piece of corner trim where 2 sections meet,
As a young BMX Junkie I wanted to get rid of the gold anodiing off my rims. I used easy off , stunk up my paretns basement pretty good too! It left some black residue that I tried to get off with steel wool, wet ot dry sand paper, rubbing compound, and metal polish. For a 14 yo that didnt like his gold rims anymore they looked ok. If you love the parts you are working on you might want to test a spot or try to find a donor part to try it on.
I worked in a camera building shop along time ago. We black anodized all the bodies and internal pieces. One day a paint remover salesman comes in with the best paint remover ever. My boss gave him one of our anodized parts to "remove the paint from". It didn't work and the saleman left scratching his head. Long story short, the best way to remove the anodizing is to blast/sand it off.
Anodizing is NOT paint and paint stripper will not remove it. The best way to remove anodizing is with Easy Off in the yellow can. Allow the oven cleaner to soak on the surface for about 5 minutes and then use a white 3M scuff pad to remove the dark gray discoloration that occurs on the surface. Rinse with cool water and wash thoroughly with liquid dish washer soap and you'll have a bright silver natural aluminum finish which can now be polished or sent out for fresh re-anodizing in your color of choice.
I have removed the clear anodzing from aluminum parts using a water/lye mixture... got the lye from Ace Hardware... be careful... use lots of protection(eye,hand,etc) It's a strong base, opposite from acid, but dissolves skin without pain... Depending on the alloy of aluminum, it may leave the aluminum black (i.e copper) You'll need to use a desmutting solution...$... to get rid of that... I thought. Ended up using CLR! Took the black right off.. ZERO sanding. Polished the aluminum afterwards... Good Luck and be careful!!
I agree with a990hemi. Easy Off, yellow can, used it, it worked great. Polished my mouldings and clearcoated them. Been 2 years now and they still look great.
I did a tech on that a couple years back, works very good. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=367777
Years ago a friend had anodized valve covers and air filter lid on a 340 Duster ... another friend shows up with industrial strength floor stripper (for removing wax etc I think) ... sprays the engine (intending to use the stripper as a degreaser of sorts) and all the anodizing washed off. No idea what the product was called but it sure did work (much to the dismay of the car owner). The guy who showed up with the floor stripper worked for the welfare housing dept ... he used it when cleaning apts while prepping for new tenants.
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