Aluminum Re-anodizing and polishing

I’d like to send the wheel lip moldings out to be re-anodized and polished but the one place here in New England that I know about is pricy and sometimes the quality isn’t all it should be. Does anyone know of a good service for this and have any pricing information? I know WCCC does this on a core exchange basis but they are showing everything as out of stock at the moment.

Bill I contacted a company out of Georgia about doing my trim. They were very expensive also. I did my trim myself. It was very time consuming so I worked on the trim in my down time while I was on shift at the fire department. I did not reanodize when I completed polishing them. I took the easy way out and clear coated each piece after they were polished. This worked for me and I’m pleased with the way they turned out. The hardest part was removing the anodized finish. For this step I used oven cleaner, coating each part. When the coating was removed the aluminum turns milky white. I then wet sanded each piece with multiple steps of sandpaper ending with 3000 grit. The next step was polishing with rouge and a buffing wheel then clear coat was added to help keep the shine. Two years later they are still looking good, at least to me :smiley:.

I know I didn’t exactly answer your question but I hope it’s a help to you or someone else.
Steven

I talked to a company on Long Island today (Resto-Trim, a division of Don’s East Coast Restorations (http://eastcoastrestorations.com/shop/). The person I spoke to recommended against reanodizing unless I was building a concours car that would be judged on a national level. I’d also seen that on a few other restoration sites so I think I’m going to follow that advice and have only the polishing done.

I would still be interested in hearing who others have used for this and what the costs have been.

Polishing is shinier than anodized, which looks cool, but you do have to stay on top of it and don’t let it get too dull. It takes some time to happen, but the duller it gets, the more elbow grease it takes to get it shiny again. As long as you use a good metal polish on it periodically it works fine and looks good. I haven’t tried putting clear coat over it (my Opel has polished aluminium trim) and I’m not sure if that’s a better way to go, but at least if you leave it uncoated you can always re-polish it pretty easily.

For a trailered show car stripped, straightened and polished is fine, but for a driver I would not recommend it. All Isabel’s trim was stripped, straightened and polished by All-Bright metal finishers (now in Hillsborough, NJ I think it is). Then I took the lot to Kenilworth Anodizing/B & M Metal Finishers and paid the lot charge ($150 I think it was) to bright dip and clear anodize it all. Not cheap but it beat the heck out of buying it piecemeal at WCCC. I also had a bunch of additional eyebrows done that I bought as a lot from John Skinner and sold (am selling) some of them to help recoupe some of the costs. Worked for me and compared to say an NOS set of wheel well moldings alone I am miles ahead.

Great to see you at Carlisle Bill.

Regards,

Bob

I had Marco do all the trim on the G car. Not cheap… I think this is the same vendor Don uses as well, so they are use do dealing with the Cougar trim pieces.
I didn’t have my wheel lip trim done as they didn’t need it. It was $600 to do both rocker molding pieces and about five week turn around time.

http://www.kingoftrim.com/home.html

i did mine mysef—tons of time----had the local anodize shop strip them fitst and then we started the process—polishing is an easy way to tie your lip mouldings into a knot----i opted to go back to the anodize shop for a flash of clear anodize—looks like new----we had a 64 fairlane that i left un anodized and it took masking off all the trim and polishing with neverdull and or wennol a couple times a year
doctordesoto

We actually do have every piece of restored aluminum (and stainless) found on any 67-73 Cougar in stock regardless of what our site says (we are still working out the kinks from changing web sites). We get cores exchanged all the time that have been straightened, polished and clear coated (even if they are from a dry climate) they still turn milky in time. A great example is our own Scott Behncke’s 69 SCJ. A decade ago he restored the eyebrow mouldings and used a NOS hood lip. The car has been in SoCal until recently and seldom driven, never parked outside and always waxed. Look at the first few seconds of the video, you will see what I mean.

As in clear coated with paint? If yes, that makes sense, no clear coat will ever hold up as well as anodizing does.

Do you have restored wheel lip moldings for 67-68? When I talked to Lin recently, it sounded like those were out of stock. There was a seller near you that knows Lin and who had a NOS set for sale, but he suddenly went dark on me, so I’m still searching for a set.

Lincoln Plating in Lincoln Nebraska has done work for me, did outstanding work. I remember sending rocker moldings in 6" pvc tubing.

I have 14 sets of 67-68 wheel lip mouldings in stock with a few extra RR units. $465 exch a set, send your cores in advance and we will “core match”. When I say core match I mean we look your cores over and if the cores you provide show a little “salt damage” on the inner edge (not easily seen when installed) then the restored units will show the same. If you send a straight, clean set of Western cores with no extra mud flap holes drilled then that is what you get back. If you have no cores then we charge you a core charge that varies depending on how high your expectations are, if they are low (lots of mud flap holes) then we charge you little to no core charge. I wish it was more straight forward but this is what we have to do in 2012 to get nice wheel lips on a Cougar. The 71-73 Mustang mouldings we have will fill the gap for cheap on a driver but the look very different than the originals. The 69-70 Mustang mouldings on the other hand look pretty darn close and because of how inexpensive they are and how good they look we rarely sell restored 69-70 wheel lips.