P.S. If you're determined to do this,I have a couple of half-sheets that I use for knife sharpening,you can have one if you want.
(I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole face)
Ian

I had some motorcycle forks rechromed. They are then ground to size after rechroming and not polished – exzactly for the reasons on this thread

Molgrips – oiled emery is about as fine an abrasive as will give you what you want IMO

try a scabbler on them, that'll un-polish the surface for sure! 😉

Right seeing as you are serious this is what i would do, first take out some kitchen roll/bloting paper when you next ride the bike to find out if there really is no oil on the uppers.

So lets assume there is no oil on the stanchions, give them a full service by the book getting loads of fresh oil on the sponge thing below the seals. See if that works I would hope so.

But lets assume it does not work. I would go to your local fabric shop and buy some leather not much lets say a foot square (they'll probably sell it in metric) Right now get some tooth paste I remember arm and hammer being more pastey, but any should do and put this on the stanchions or leather (you'll have to take the fork apart) now rub them you'll soon find a method that works.

I use this as my second to last process when sharpening chisels or hand planes, but as your stanchions are highly polished already this should do the reverse and do as you want. If you want a grinding compound either go ask at your local polishers or a quick google brought up grounded pumice stone and petroleum jelly, which sounds great.

"tell you what, I could do a swap….
… somewhere in the spares box I have a pair of 1996 "

I was thinking more along the lines of buying a new DT fork (as this is apparantly sufficient? and selling the DTs

"He told me that DT had made their stanchions less smooth to make the fork plusher "
"It is, I think – by DT as mentioned above. "

Are you sure DT just don't make them a touch less smooth? Rather than make them too smooth and then have to make them rough enough? (apologies if I've not read it fully)

Are you sure DT just don't make them a touch less smooth?

Well obviously they do. However I don't have access to a DT fork making factory so I was investigating the possibility of achieving a similar result through other means…

Buying a DT fork is a great idea except that they are £750 🙂

As for the fork internals – they have just been thoroughly serviced by the lovely Fork English bloke. They are stored upside down normally so the wipers are lubricated. If I oil the stanchions (tried loads of different oils) not much happens. Water does bead on the stanchions but that's about all the evidence I see.

Interestingly, I have another pair of Pace forks, RC39, which appear to have a similar coating on the stanchions (they are the same year). However these are always superbly smooth and active, and there clearly is more oil on the stanchions; it bunches up at the top of the stroke and attracts dirt etc, which doens't happen on the RC41s. So something's different.