Mainly did it to get rid of the paint rub, I think it looks quite good.

Opinions please!

Not bad, thinking of doing a similar thing to my xtr m970’s. Will the finish last?

I was thinking about doing this with my old hone cranks. Looks good.

I will report back after a ride tomorrow regarding the finish.

Cant see why it wouldn’t, using a bit of car polish on it every time you wash the bike should keep it tip top.

I polished up some old 760 XTs and they’ve kept the finish well but removing the anodising wil make any alu part easily scratched as the surface hardness is a lot lower.

Drain cleaner crystals in water (sodium hydroxide) removes the anodising easily, wet and dry paper, then a polish wheel on a drill with a bit of t-cut gets them mirror-smooth. There’s loads of pics and info on MTBR about crank mods if you’re thinking of doing it.

The finish doesn’t hold up brilliantly where my shoe rubs. It leaves distinctive marks in it.

Ah well, was worth a try.

could you re-polish then spray them with a clear top coat to help protect them?? or heli tape

If anyone’s thinking of copying this, save yourself some effort and buy some old flares, coat them with metal polish, then go out for an all day ride. Viola! And after a good wash you’ll have some flares which are already coming back into fashion!

You need a polishing kit bud,Cant find the pics how these looked when i bought them.
Very er pitted,rough & Dull..

then went ape SH*T

Paint stripper …
Started off with 300 wet n dry
Got to 800 then had a blast with 1500
Polishing mop with Brown cutting compound
Then new mop with blue compound.
Then polished with Lime….
I never touuched Autosol…
Polishing kit cost £18 posted off e-bay loads left …
May be doing a mates lowers soon..Mmmm

Better pic..

After all that effort, why not just spray with a couple of coats of clear lacquer to protect the finish?

I removed black anodising with caustic soda, took a few minutes only and the Hone cranks looked better afterwards.

These all look great! I may one day attempt it with my old curvy XTR cranks (the original hollow BB ones – can’t remember the number).

Nothing beats a good bit of elbow grease.

There was a pic floating around of a full Intense downhill frame being done – looked incredible!

I think I am going to spray them with lacquer.

polished some old cranks up, lasted 2 rides dull as dishwater again, maybe I didn’t buff them enough. I also polished up an ali frame, laquered that but the laquer went a bit dodgy that’s why I didn’t bother with the cranks, besides would have got rubbed off pretty quick.

To be able to lacquer and achieve a finish, the substrate would have to have a matt finish for adhesion and the shine would come from the lacquer, not the substrate.

Ah, this is relevant to my interests as I’ve recently stripped the paint off my frame, and am going to polish it up at some stage if I can be bothered.

PterPoddy gave me a good tip; use Brillo pad at the end, brings it up really nice and shiny. Bit of Silvo polish or Anusl etc, and it looks great.

Got a pair of Deore cranks to do, but caustic soda did bugger all to get rid of the powder coat on them, neigher did Nitromors.

This is what I achieved with some Middleburn cranks that I bought on here:

Stripped off the finish with some 380 grade wet & dry, the moved to 1500 grade, then Solvol Autosol and finally car polish. Too bling to put on my Genesis iO single speeder now! 😀

stripped and scotchbite’d frame with mirror polished cranks, headset and seat clamp

Interesting, Tazzy; it’s like a bicycle, but wronger… 😉

Too bling to put on my Genesis iO single speeder now

Give to me then pliz.

it’s like a bicycle, but wronger.

it’s wronger than french kissing ya granny 😆

I’m hugely impressed. To the OP – what were the original cranks?

Getting the polished alloy lacquered seems to be the best way to go.

I did see some circa 2003 XTR cranks from a Shimano press release that were about to be dipped in the anodizing tank. TBH I preferred them before they went in.

The cranks are these

I think I might be alone in thinking I prefer XTR cranks as standard – not polished!

Polishing aluminium is a hiding to nothing, you’ll get it shiny as heck, then within hours / days, it will dull.

Aluminum is very reactive and will corrode very quickly. When it corrodes, it forms aluminium oxide, which stops the aluminium underneath from corroding more.

Anodized aluminium is basically specially corroded so the oxide coating is thicker and tougher.

This is why you never see a factory polished aluminium finish, it is always anodised or painted.

Apart from all the companies who did/do factory polish aluminium frames that is 🙂
Intense
Santa Cruz
Pace
Lapierre
GT
Giant
etc

+1 I’m assuming 7hz never saw the GT Zaskar, GT RTS, GT LTS all of which were around 15-20yrs ago with polished the most common (if not only) finish? It may be cheaper/quicker/easier to powdercoat than polish and lacquer but check out retrobike or google image, a whole generation of us grew up lusting after polished bikes.

Those polished RF and middleburn cranks look terrific, I have some heel-polished XTs, some sand paper and a glass scratch polish kit, and a whole lot of time on my one good hand. Hmmmm….

@Forza: your skill with polishing is clearly amazing… did your wrist hurt or are you used to it? Looks lush… 😉

Some nice work ^^

You can save loads of time and get a really nice finish with proper mops and the right compounds. Don’t cost much either!

Plenty on Fleabay

proper mops and the right compounds.

that’s what I used and it’s strangely addictive. I had to stop myself from mirror polishing everything in sight

@Forza: your skill with polishing is clearly amazing… did your wrist hurt or are you used to it? Looks lush…

It took me roughly 2 hours for each crank. I broke that up into roughly 30 minute sessions over a couple of days to relieve the boredom. Fortunately I don’t suffer with limp wrists 😉

I’m assuming 7hz never saw the GT Zaskar, GT RTS, GT LTS all of which were around 15-20yrs ago with polished the most common (if not only) finish? It may be cheaper/quicker/easier to powdercoat than polish and lacquer but check out retrobike or google image, a whole generation of us grew up lusting after polished bikes.

Fair enough, but these bikes must be lacquered or whatever – raw polished aluminium does react as I stated previously.

+1

I am sure they were clear laquered.

Were Pace’s anodised – even the silver ones.

Had a ballistic easton team frame in silver ‘back in the day’ and the lacquer started to flake on them.

Any way, some nice shots in there and those Middleburns are lush

nope Zazkars were never lacquered, they were ball burnished from the factory not polished but most ended up that way. SantaCruz offered a polished option on the Mk1 Chameleon (not sure if they still do) cost me £50 extra. Every aluminium frame I’ve had has been nitromor’sed then polished.

yeah the pace frames in silver were ano.zaskars could be polished.

Oh martin how would you know lol, I know where you hide the xyz collectionssssssssssss of shiny bikes

ok – take Pace off my list. It must just be retrobikers who’ve started polishing them.
Santa Cruz used to offer it as an option on all of their models I think (or at least the swingarms of the full sus ones), but they stopped a couple of years ago.

Giant and Lapierre have current polished alu models afaiaa

I have no idea whether they are clearcoated or not, but I just wanted to point out that polished aluminium is still going strong despite the oxidisation. If I were doing a full frame, I’d be tempted to get a clear powder coat.

i think the orange filing cabinet alpine 160 looks terrific polished, and when mine is all tatty may go that route (though a lacquer may make it more user friendly)

(with apologies to oxnop for hawking pics of what may be his bike)

My mates Bullit 6/7 years old looks like new!

Shiny frame! by paul winterbottom, on

@Forza: sound like I need to go polish, perfect comeback by the way. 😉