De-Anodising and polishing on the cheap.

Do you want bling? you must have patience. Here's a tutorial on how to de-anodise and polish.

In the top picture my diff was blue... So to match I must de-anodise and polish.

de-anodise is easy. Oven Cleaner is your friend

DO THIS OUTSIDE. FUMES ARE DANGEROUS>

Anodizing involves a dye that is etch bonded onto the alloy  , The chemicals help to disolve the dye. But they are aggressive so can also attack the metal.

run under water will remove most of the chemicals for status  check.

attempt 1... not quite there. so re-do the process.

work quickly and re-clean in layers. not quite.

eventually, you get a little oxidization. This is not desirable but with this cheapo method, somewhat unavoidable. 

So there you go... 5 minutes... More like ten minutes when doing it in layers.

So that's the end of step one. Remember to wash thouroghly and clean.

Part 2. Polishing.

Requires a dremel, buff pads and some polish. I use this Auto Glym one

Polishing... this is where an hour can disappear quickly.  The key is to use lot's of polish and let the polish work. The buffing pads are not for pushing hard against anything. they are just there to glide over the top and push the polish around. 

I'm starting out like this,

You can see how wet the serface is. If the metal piece is getting hot. you have. too much rpm, not enough polish or too much pressure. 

After a few applications, you get a shine coming through. I have not pressed hard at all. 

Spread it around and keep going 

The longer you work it, (WITH POLISH) you get better results. Never use the pads on the dry part, they will simply get hot and wear out.  

So i think thats a bit of an improvement. 

now how far do you go and does it really need to be perfect... The item on the right... it's not super clean near the centre. 

But the whole piece is covered by the bearing... do it if you want... But these two pieces took about 30-40 minutes. time to rebuild the diff.

Have "FUN" ? Hmmm