How to polish zaskar frame advice!

[cosstick]

Hey, First proper post here so hello
I bought an '95 GT Zaskar frame about a year ago and it had a terrible black paint job when i bought it, keeps chipping and showing the lovely anodized purple where the paint has come off, so they obviosly hadn't done a good job!

What i want to do is get rid of the black, and maybe the purple depending how garish it looks!

So how would i go about polising it ?

And if anyone has any before and after pics of their techniques feel free to post them

Thanks, Simon

 

[juiceboxx]

polishing frames

i had a professional do a polish job for me. it turned out better than i thought and was half the price of paint or powdercoat. it sounds like it was stolen at one point and they tried to cover up the flashy purple anodizing, or it was that period of time when it was "gay" to have anodized bits 1998-2006

 

[lewis1641]

removing the paint shouldnt be too hard but dont use anything abrasive and risk damaging the anodising. if you want to remove the purple i have had great sucsess with drain cleaner (wear skin and eye protection - it is nasty stuff).

i did a set of cranks bu making a bath out of a 2 litre juice bottle and sitting the cranks in there, occasionally agitating the surface with a paint brush. i guess with a frame you could just brush it on but be really careful and dont do it around kids and pets.

after the anodising was removed and the drain cleaner washed off my cranks went a really cool matt black colour. sometimes this happens apparently. all i did was rub this down with very fine wet wet n dry then hit the polish.

the good thing about anodising is that before it is done the bare aluminium needs to be polished anyway so it wont take long to restore.

scratches are a problem though. i have just started polishing an rts frame but it was covered in deep scratches which need to be smoothed out first. the frame currently looks worse than when i started it as its been rubbed down with 200 grit wet and dry.

 

[lewis1641]

welcome by the way! how rude of me

 

[juiceboxx]

polishing frames

after this is all done, you might want to get it anodized again with a hard coat or in whatever colour you like. otherewise the aluminum will become dull and when you touch it, it will turn your hands black. that or some kind of clearcoat. anodizing around where i live for a frame is free through the military or a company will do a frame for around 100-150 cad dollars. i can send you a guys email address from an anodizing co if you need to find out more info. cheers

 

[cosstick]

welcome by the way! how rude of me

Haha, Thanks!

Hmm i think i would just want to remove the paint to the anodized purple, sounds like a lot of hard work getting it back to the raw, and then having to get it coated again.

Any tips for getting the paint off without damaging the purple ?

Cheers for the info juice but im in the UK so would cost a fair bit to ship it over there !


Simon
[/quote]

 

[cosstick]

double post,

 

[juiceboxx]

polishing frames

hey, i was just putting that out as a reference to pricing. i am sure there are twice as many places to get anodizing done in the u.k. as there are in canada. i was going to suggest the people at Hope. as for the paint, try heating it up a bit with a hair dryer. go slow with it and don't heat too much. and scrape with something soft like plastic. there are probably solvents that do it too but be careful as it might strip your finish. cheers, jesse

 

[lewis1641]

or nitromors. i'm sure anodinsing is resistant to nitromors

 

[jimihendrix]

or nitromors. i'm sure anodinsing is resistant to nitromors

It is , Nitromorse will remove the paint easily if it's a crappy job but shouldn't harm the anodising.

I'd keep it purple if you can, there's tons of polished Zaskars about now so it'd be nice to see a purple one