There is not too much progress to be shown today. I did a nice swap some time ago with jamabikes and got a turquoise Crud Cog Hog.
It will fit right in and will also help my XTR M900 rear mech to do its job.
I asked four different anodizers if they are able to do the job. Two of them didn't care to answer at all. One said he could do the ano part but not the polishing part. And the last one was able to answer all my questions and to do everything which is nessecary to make all these parts bling again.
Even if i have to drive double the distance and pay a little bit more i'm confident that this is the right decision.
Here is one last "before" pic of the pile which hopefully will be all turquoise soon.
I wasn't sure if these clamps were anodised or clear coated and two guys at the anodising company thought they were clear anodised so they put them in a bath and you can see in the pics above how they came back out.
So for everybody who is asking himself the same question. The answer is Shimano clamps have two types of laquer. One chrome colour laquer and a clear coat on top.
I already started to see what 100 type sandpaper can do to get them ready for some colour but judging from the outcome i will have to do some more and afterwards also try with 400 type sandpaper. And i bought a polishing kit, too. Never tried that before but we'll see how that goes. In the end these clamps will be turquoise no matter how they are fighting this plan.
I have had mistakes with anodising to - the funniest was a headlock that looked like chocolate that had been left in the sun, turns out it was magnesium ...
Cast parts have been tricky (maybe the clamps are cast ?). I haven't looked into it but I don't think the grain structure in a cast part isn't as dence and let's the chemicals penetrate a little more and a little unven. Sometimes it has worked OK (but with a variance in shade), sometimes they have gone dark grey and not accepted any colour.
Corroded parts, even when polished up to look perfect have pitted quite badly when a anodised - like the corrosion has opened up the structure again.
Today i found some time to put the brakes and the skewers back together and the Shimano clamps are looking better than ever after sanding them down with 100 type sandpaper.
It is unbelieveable satisfying to me to look at the brakes and the brake levers. So i fear that means more pics of those parts before i can go on with my frame.
@Peter: There is a good chance that these clamps are cast aluminium. And i also think you are probably right with how corroded aluminium will react. In the two hours that my sandpaper work lasted i thought about all this and maybe it would be the best idea to just polish these clamps and put them on the bar with some turquoise bolts.
On the other hand i'm really curious to see if these clamps wouldn't just come out of the bath looking fine but i'm not really keen on destroying something on which i invested hours of buddist work. :roll: Will think about it for some more hours during the upcoming 400 type sandpaper session....