Right - making some progress at last!
My local car bodyshop just recommended an alloy wheel place locally. Just spoken to them and they seem very fair:
Option 1 - They dip frame to remove existing paint, I polish up £20 (Not sure how much work is going to be involved in this though!! - anybody know how easy it will be to polish after it's been dipped for lacquer removal?)
Option 2 - They water blast or sodas blast it - probably 3-4 hrs work so £200 and I'd still need to polish it afterwards. Not sure if this leaves me with less polishing effort?
Option 3 - They blast it and then powdercoat it to look like aluminium but in powdercoat with a clearcoat over the top. £100 Advantage of this is no work for me but not sure how good a match it will be for the existing finish.
Option 1 seems like a nice cheap option and I can see what I've got after that. If it looks like being a bugger of a job then I could get it powdercoated to look like aluminium
They didn't think that clearcoating over the top of polished aluminium was a good idea because the clearcoat won't adhere very well so won't last. Equally they felt that polishing it up and leaving it bare metal would be very practical because it will simply oxidise if you don't keep on top of it. There are people on here though who have done just that and report that in fact if protected with a good car wax it doesn't lose its sheen very fast.
I was also thinking about bike components such as cranks and chainrings and handlebars. These are aluminium and don't oxidise that fast do they? Are they clearcoated and if so what with?? Anybody know??
Saxon
