I wanted to polish some of my window trim. Come to find out that the window trim has a anodized finish on it. Does anyone know of a technique to remove or a safe chemical that might remove the finish? Thanks for allyour help.

Great question jcervant. I have stainless trim around my windows that is over 32 years old. Some pieces are in better shape than others. I'm sure some of the others on this forum will be able to give advice, but here is what I tried.

I started with and or tried: Blue Magic Metal Polilsh, Top Brite, Mothers, Bar Keepers Friend. But they didn't do very well on some of the pieces that were very well faded. I did also try and had pretty good luck with "SimiChrome". You can search online, but I found mine at my local Harley dealership. This stuff "rocks" for most stainless that can be restored. 8) Just remember, it is for stainless, NOT on Chrome!

Now for a few pieces that didn't clean up with the above products, you might try to machine polish with Emery compound, then White compound, and finish up with either Jewelers rouge or Stainless compound. You can get all of these at Home Depot.

But for a great site to get the polishing compound products and learn about metal polishing, go to Caswell, Inc. website (http://www.caswellplating.com/). There is a free An Introduction to Buffing & Polishing (http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffman.htm) section to walk you through the procedure. There is also a forum section that will help. Just remember to go slow and test on piece that is not to noticeable.

Mine came out pretty good for old stainless. I did mine with it still attached to the Elky. I think it would have come out better if I removed the stainless and polished it on a bench. I did take pictures, but the flash or the sunshine really didn't make the pictures come out good enough to be any help.


Best of luck and let us know how you make out.

Greetings Jcervant,

You did not indicate what generation Elco you had. I checked your "stats" but was unable to tell from there. From the sounds of your querry, I would say that you have a 5th generation Elco 80 - 87.

73 Elkyss provided some excellent input for stainless steel molding which regularly came with the older Elcos / vehicles back in the day.

Insofar as your trim goes, I am not an authority on that by any means but.. when I had mine redone on another 5th generation Elco. I had to have the clear coat stripped off. I then had the trim polished and chrome plated.

In your case, you can have or strip the clear coat using a paint stripper. polish the trim pieces then recoat them with clear. Best of luck.

Great info!

As 82 Elco mentioned, not all trim on 5th gens is "pure" stainless steel.

Thanks for all the great info. I have a 87 el camino. Someone told me that it is aluminum , but to be honest with it does not feel like aluminum. 82 elco , you mentioneed that you had the stainless polish then you had it chrome plated? I didn't think that you could chrome plate stainless.Was it pretty durable? If that is the case then I think I will just have it chrome plated instead of polishing it.

Oven cleaner will take off the anodized finish.

It works!

John

Txbusa,

I suppose oven cleaner will clean the paint too. Right?

Take care.

Txbusa,

I suppose oven cleaner will clean the paint too. Right?

Take care.

I never said anything about paint. Did I?[imghttp://www.suzukihayabusa.org/phpbb/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

I f you want to remove an anodized finish on some small trim pieces, oven cleaner will work. It must be used in moderation though. After it has been removed, you can continue polishing the metal in a standard fashion.

I never said anything about paint. Did I?http://www.suzukihayabusa.org/phpbb/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

I f you want to remove an anodized finish on some small trim pieces, oven cleaner will work. It must be used in moderation though. After it has been removed, you can continue polishing the metal in a standard fashion.

From a discussion board on the subject:

Oven cleaner DOES work quite well. But Anodizing is the second hardest substance known to man, its going to take longer than 15 minutes!! I recommend atleast 45 minutes, after that you will actually see the anodizing fall off. And depending on the aluminum underneath, it sometimes does leave a horrid finish. But for a Motorcycle, since I am assuming you were polishing the frame on the GSXR... the resulting finish would NOT matter because the plan is to sand, cut and polish. I am sorry you spent the whole weekend sanding off the Anodizing, if you had given the oven cleaner another half an hour, you could have saved some elbow grease.

John 8)

Contact Caswell Plating as they sell the crystals to remove the anodized finish. Mix the crystals in warm water, submerge the trim for less than 60 seconds and your trim will be ready to polish. If you want to re-anodize the part when you finish polishing it they also sell the product to do this. It's a very simple process you can do at home.

My 5th gen had a very nice repaint job but very bad trim when I bought it so I painted the grille and head light bezels replaced the front bumper and painted the top half of the rear bumper . As for the trim (all alumnium) I used Miracle cloth right over the worn adionozed finish and it turned out nice, I went over it twice, and thought I would have to do this often, but so far its held up for a year. I also polished all my underhood alumnium with the same result. All the polishing took me 2 hours.My member car is 502/502 if you care to look.

Thanks for the tip beach10222 (David). I did check out your El Camino. Had to dig for it. :-P It was on page 20 of the 5th gen's. Looks good.

Kinda off subject, but I really like how you painted the rear tail pipe and then put on the chrome tips. What kind of special paint did you use? Are the tips welded on? Mind if I copy that look???

Thanks

My favorite trick for polishing chrome and the aluminum on my boat is to use the die grinder with a buffing cookie and use tooth paste as the polishing compound.

It is very quick and a tube of tooth paste is cheap. After you get it polished use a little liquid soap on a cloth and polish it until the chrome is dry. This liquid soap trick will also work great on the glass. It makes your glass bead water just like a new car.

For best results do it on a cool cloudy day or in the shop out of the sunlight.

Good luck and keep shinnin!