Aluminum Recommendations

aray

aray

New member
Hi All,

I have a 2008 Nautique Super Air with a Stainless Steel wakeboard tower. The stainless tower itself looks good, but all the fittings used on it are polished (and possibly coated) aluminum. Those look rough.

I know very little about polishing aluminum, any recommendations for a process to refinish these guys?

Also -- is there any way to tell if these are coated or not?
 

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I don't know much myself, but Todd just had a thread on here about polishing aluminum with the blackfire system. I plan on cleaning and polishing aluminum this summer, we'll see how it goes.
 
Yes a simple way to tell if they are coated is to simply rub some aluminum polish on them if it turns black them no they're not coated. But looking at your pics I would say at one time they were coated with a thin layer of clear that is starting to fail. About the only thing you can do now is strip it all off and repolish. I would also recoat them or they will be a maintenance nightmare unless you plan repolishing them occasionally. If you don't mind spending some money on them I would have them clear powder coated after polishing them then you can forget about them.
 
One can tell if there is a coating of some type on those aluminum fittings is by applying a some polish on one of them. When you rub if no black residue appears on a cloth then there is a coating over the aluminum. Aluminum oxide will come off as a black residue if you’re working on any uncoated aluminum. If nothing comes off then they have some type of coating on them.
 
Thanks everyone -- I'll pull these off sometime in the next couple weeks and give it a go.
 
zoomzoom mazda5 said:
One can tell if there is a coating of some type on those aluminum fittings is by applying a some polish on one of them. When you rub if no black residue appears on a cloth then there is a coating over the aluminum. Aluminum oxide will come off as a black residue if you’re working on any uncoated aluminum. If nothing comes off then they have some type of coating on them.
Click to expand...

Bingo!

The parts that are connectors that attach to the tube / arms are not coated that's why they have corrosion starting. Pic five is what I am talking about, for this I start with 0000 steel wool to cut the junk off the surface, I will address the process at the end of this.

The third pic with the star on it looks like brushed finish. Its not going to come out as shiny as the ones that are not, just an FYI

For the polished and process my recommendations are PB Pro-Polish and SemiChrome.

When polishing by hand use cotton only not micro fiber, cotton allows you to get a better grip on the metal and will help to break down the polish better.

There are plenty of parts on there they are going to require some real elbow grease, so don't get discouraged if the first pass or two only takes a little off.

Lastly if there is a lot of black residue coming off, when start to take off the polish, put a small amount of baking soda on the towel ( you can use micro fiber for this) the BS will absorb the black residue and leave the finish perfect. I do this all the time on the while polishing Harley aluminum parts
 
zoomzoom mazda5 said:
One can tell if there is a coating of some type on those aluminum fittings is by applying a some polish on one of them. When you rub if no black residue appears on a cloth then there is a coating over the aluminum. Aluminum oxide will come off as a black residue if you’re working on any uncoated aluminum. If nothing comes off then they have some type of coating on them.
Click to expand...

hmmm seems I've heard this before!:)

But there is one thing to add. These may also be clear anodized coated not clear paint and the anodizing is starting to fail. If this is the case then when you start to clean them and you don't get any oxidization on your towel you then need to figure out what kind of coating it is. If the coating does not come off very easy and I would use scotch brite pads not steel wool then they may be anodized.

If it comes off with some scrubbing then it's paint and just continue on with the polishing. If it doesn't then they are anodized and the only way to get that off is to sand it. Anodizing is actually the outer layer of the metal that has been changed and thus is part of the metal. The reason for this is that it forms a hard corrosion resistant layer to protect the alloy. It's been used since the 50's on airplanes.

So to remove it you have to remove metal to get that top layer off and down to the raw metal and then polish the bare metal. For a little more on anodizing just do a search on it and you will see a little better what I'm talking about.
 
Linky no worky.

Sharkhide

Looks like a very nice product and very easy to use. The only thing is sometimes when you put something on polished alloy it takes the briteness away from it.
 
I found that Opti coat doesn't take away from the shine of polished aluminum. It's something to consider. I know it's expensive but it can be used on many other things.
 
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