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Just wondering... If an Aluminium frame were dipped by a powder coater in an acid bath, and all the paint removed wWould the frame come out looking quite polished like the new giant anthem ? or do they come out dull and then wire wool would bring out a polished look ?
Dull. Had mine done years back.
How do you achieve the highly polished look then ?
Various polishing bits in a drill or Dremel, some Autosol and lots of time and patience. Assuming there are no scratches, then it's time to break out the wet and dry, in ever decreasing grades until the scratches are out. Then back to the first bit I mentioned
I did an old Diamondback frame using paint stripper when it was actually worthy of the name (and full of awful stuff that'd have your hands off if you looked at it funny.) It worked ok, the little dibbley bits around the welds and stuff was a PITA to clean out but once I'd got it down to bare ally I just gave it a scuff with some scotchbrite pads to give it a nice brushed finish. Polishing's ok if you can be arsed to keep on top of it, otherwise it can look tatty quickly.
edit- there are businesses that 'do' aluminium polishing, they usually advertise in classic car or bike mags if you want to pay someone to do it and save yourself days of black snots.
I got some Autosol and a bag of mops for my drill from eBay. It was easy but time consuming. Obviously the more time you spend on it, the better it looks.
The problem was that it doesn't stay shiny. It quickly goes dull and because the surface isn't smooth it fills up with dirt and looks stained and brown all the time. Maybe I should have clear lacquered it.
I loved mine when it was rebuilt but it looked like crap after a few months and I ended up having it power coated.