Stripping anno?

[Remington]

Does anyone know how to strip anno or know someplace that does? I'm looking to get my Emag trigger frame and battery pack stripped and then polished. Or, is there such thing as a chrome anno(probably a stupid question)? Post some ideas, thanks!

[BajaBoy]

u could search to find that you can use Lye.

and also its crome/nickle plating

[Teen]

with sand paper. start with a lower grain, about 320, and work yourway up to about 1200. It would be pretty much the same way as you would sand and polish a teflon coated mag body. i did it to mine and it turned out great. there should be a thread somewhere that tells u how to do it step by step.

[Mossman]

Originally posted by Teen
with sand paper. start with a lower grain, about 320, and work yourway up to about 1200. It would be pretty much the same way as you would sand and polish a teflon coated mag body. i did it to mine and it turned out great. there should be a thread somewhere that tells u how to do it step by step.


You have to strip the anno first. John, you use a lye/water solution to do it, like red devil pipe/oven cleaner or Drain-o crystals. Hell, I could do it for ya too. Then to polish it either a polishing compound on a buffing wheel or something like Mother's Mag Polish will work wonders.

[BajaBoy]

Originally posted by Teen
with sand paper. start with a lower grain, about 320, and work yourway up to about 1200. It would be pretty much the same way as you would sand and polish a teflon coated mag body. i did it to mine and it turned out great. there should be a thread somewhere that tells u how to do it step by step.


that works better for ss, when u use any kind of wet/dry paper on alu your always gunna have lines left over. Even with a brillow pad u wont have a Perfect surface. I lurned it the hard way, just use lie... then clean the metal really good, polish it, clear ano it.. then polish the crap out of it agian.

[Remington]

Awesome, thanks for the help guys.

[Teen]

oooppps. i didn't even thing about that. i was thinking like it was stainless steel. my bad, im stupid, don't listen to me:)

[BajaBoy]

Originally posted by Teen
oooppps. i didn't even thing about that. i was thinking like it was stainless steel. my bad, im stupid, don't listen to me:)

lol no, if i didnt make that mistake then i would have said the same thing as u:p

[magking1971]

Oven cleaner works well also:D

[Load SM5]

Drano-o crystals and warm water. Wear rubber gloves, use tongs and do it outside but that is the fastest and neatest way to strip anno. After it's off you can polish it right up with no scratches to worry about like sanding.

If you need more details PM me. I've stripped quite a few parts that way.

[magman007]

yes, the warm watter is the fastest strier, but be careful, as with warm watter, it will be boiling in no time! its pretty friggin coo!


yea, your supposed to use cold water, but im like tim taylor.... ¡MORE POWER!!!

[Remington]

How long does the Drano method take and how well does it strip it? Mossman suggested a sodium chloride mixture(lye) but it's starting to sound like the Drano thing works better.

[Load SM5]

Lye is also used in drain cleaners and they both work equally well in my experience. You should only leave the part in there for 10-15 seconds at a time before pulling it out and wiping off the losse anno with a rag. Repeat until the anno is off. If it's a bigger part like a body rail you may have to change the drano/water solution to keep from cooking the old anno back on some. If the solution looks pretty murky then change it. Use tongs as much as possible because the part will get pretty hot. And do it outside because the fumes are a killer, literally. And rubber gloves will keep off those pesky chemical burns.;)

[Jonesie]

You wouldn't know anything about those chemical burns, would ya Jeff? ;)

Later ~ Jonesie

[Smokee_2_7]

Yes, as others have said- - drano or lye oven cleaner works well to remove the ano layer.

The problem that you can anticipate is what happens AFTER you get it all stripped off. You will be left with bare aluminum. Bare AL tends to oxidize rather quickly- - and will not hold a nice mirror shine like stainless steel will. Mother's Mag polish will help put a nice shine on there for you, but expect to have to re-polish every couple weeks if you want it to stay looking like that.


Yes, there is a "silver" anodize available. Basiclly what we do is strip the part, polish the living crap out of it (super-mirror) and then anodize the peice for relativly short period of time. (the reason for this is that parts that are allowed to anno for the full time look kinda 'lemony' when they come out.) Then we simply skip the coloring process, and promptly seal the pores created by the anodizing. What you wind up with is a nice, silver looking part that does not have that SUPER reflective, shiney 'chrome' look. The reason we annodize it is because the anno layer is prevents oxidation and is a more scratch resistant than raw aluminum. You don't have to worry about re-polishing with a compound such as Mother's or anything like that.


Hope this helps answer your question,

Carl

[Load SM5]

Originally posted by Jonesie
You wouldn't know anything about those chemical burns, would ya Jeff? ;)

Later ~ Jonesie

I would know nothing about fumes or chemical burns in a nasty hotel in New Orleans..no.;)

[CaptainChops]

Hey... I don't have anything really intelligent to add, I just wanted to say how proud I am to be a part of this forum. I never cease to be amazed by the quality of the posts on here and the amount of good info that I pick up in them.
So yeah, thanks for just being you AO;)

[ex9066]

Just thought I'd add something, I've strip a few parts in the past few days...

Drain Unblocker / Lye is what I used.

Over here in the England we call it Caustic SODA. Main ingredient being Sodium Hydroxide (also known as LYE)

IF you want to strip really fast, put more in, but note that the solution will get hot as the reactions occur, and most importantly, after the anodised layer rubs off, the solution will begin attacking the aluminium. With a concentrated solution, the ano comes of in seconds, so keep an eye on it.

I learnt this the hard way, thought everything was fine, even washed the part in water between dipping and rubbing. Turns out that droplets that remained on it started pitting the surface, looks like little burn marks.

I've also been trying to get a shine on the bare aluminium, which as someone stated before, doesn't really work, thus I am now looking to anodise (but what colour??).

If you want to see what the stripped alu comes out as, take a look at my post here:

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76761

The stripped parts are the sight, body rail and front grip. Notice that even though I've used chrome polish on it, it doesn't shine line the body or trigger frame which are nickle plated...

Hope this helps...

Phu Le

[athomas]

I use a phosphoric acid when stripping annodize. It works very well. The chemical is actually an aluminum cleaner which is meant to be mixed with water. I use it full strength and it strips the annodize layer off without damage to the aluminum.

If you want a real shine, use an electroless crome finish. Its quite easy and can be done at home on the stove.

[Load SM5]

Originally posted by athomas


If you want a real shine, use an electroless crome finish. Its quite easy and can be done at home on the stove.

I'm intrigued, where do you find this?

[cphilip]

Caswell Inc (http://www.caswellplating.com/)

[athomas]

Yep, I get mine from Caswell too.

[cphilip]

they got a world of cool stuff there. You could spend a fortune on stuff there and I want too! Good prices though. And good instructional stuff.

[Teen]

I just stripped the anno off of my body rail today with drain cleaner. its like a whitish color underneath. is it supose to look like that?

[ex9066]

yeah, thats right, you'll get a pale colour, if you leave it in the solution for a while and you'll get it to turn patchy with gray/black areas.

Just rub it down with some polish and the dis-colouration will go.

Just wondering, have you noticed any little marks in your rail? Bits that look like it been dissolved away?

Just that on the two rails I've stripped, I get these little pits, but it hasn't happened on any other aluminum parts I've strippped....

[Teen]

nope