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Managed to pick up a set of Raceface Diabulous cranks off Fleabay for the fatbike, both cranks arms are very worn from foot rub, so wondered about polishing them completely to silver.
Reading the interweb, there seems to be different techniques depending on whether they are anodized or powercoated, i believe they are anodized and some have mentioned using caustic soda or draincleaner to strip the anodizing off?
Any ideas or assistance would be greatly appreciated before i chemically attack them!
Caustic/drain cleaner dissolves aluminium which is why it strips anodising. Id try just brasso and elbow grease first to see if it comes off easily enough. If you do use caustic, follow the instructions carefully and always add caustic to cold water, never the other way arround. Id avoid the join between the crank and axle too, its very effective at getting betwen a stuck seatpost amd a steel frame so I guess it would make light work of removing the crank from the axle.
Crank axle interface unlikely to be a problem as I presume its an old skool crank with whatever 100mm bb you've managed to find that fits.
Whats the best way of polishing them up, using a polishing wheel in a drill?
I just used an old t shirt and an evening infront of the TV.
I stripped the clear anodising off a pair of Middleburns - damn they're done well.
I used wet'n'dry paper, starting at 800 grit to get the worst off (and smooth out a few dents), then going up to ~2000 grit to get nice and smooth. Finish off with Autosol with the old t-shirt ^^^. You could use them as a mirror by the time I was finished a few weeks later.
oven cleaner
I used it on a cinelli quill stem before polishing it