Anodizing old rims

[zorroz]

Anyone had old rims re anodized? Found a place in Mortdale Sydney that does rims for $70 a pair. What do they come up like? They said they have the satin or gloss finish wounder which looks better for the silver.

[vmx42]

Zorroz,
There isn't much difference between satin and gloss. Get them to show you some samples when you take the rims in and then make your choice.

The hardest part of the process is polishing the rims first. The better the polish the better the end result. I have even had things clear anodized if the polishing was good enough. The elbow grease makes all the difference.
VMX42

[LWC82PE]

i got some really good rims i need to get re-anodized but i cant find any one in Adelaide who does hard annodizing. ive had normal soft annodizing done before but these rims are for my real good bike and i kinda want to do it properly and do it once.

what do other people do? is hard annodizing really the best and only option for rims? do most people go for hard annodizing?

if so are there any hard annodizers anyone can recommend in melbourne or some where in NSW or Vic that is not to far from SA? i dont really want to send these rims too far away from me as they are very valuable and it was very hard to find original suzuki rims in such good condition.

[YSS]

I have done all my hard anodising for plates , spacers etc on my sidecars in house . Hardness 60 Rockwell
in black or titanium.

[LWC82PE]

im looking for the original silver finish of the rims. ive previously requested bright silver annodizing for a swing arm and that seemed to be about right.

[YSS]

 Silver hard colour always depends on the proberty of the raw material and preparation ( in case of second hand goods ) the best results are from 6000 +7000 series aluminium which we use to make our parts.

[LWC82PE]

yeah i kind of know that, ive discussed it with annodizers before. i find if i polish to a semi mirror/satin finish and then request bright silver its usually about right. i also say i dont want a chrome look either. i once requested matt silver but that was not good, it was more grey in colour and i dont want grey rims

[oldfart]

"Links "     Yatala Queensland    use the same company as I do , to strip and redo rims . I had a set of fork tubes done by them ... Old mate  told me the cleaner I can get em the better the finish 

[vmx42]

If you polish to a mirror finish and use either bright silver or clear anodising you will get an almost factory finish. Oldfart is right, it is all in the preparation.

Any anodiser worth his salt will have a range of samples of their finishes that will give you a pretty good guide.

If you don't want to go to all the trouble of polishing to a mirror finish, or the part just isn't good enough then you can have it coated by Electrosil in Victoria. They have a number of unique surface treatments that give a similar mirror finish on older parts. Give them a call or look on their web site. I have seen some rims done by one of their processes that looked fantastic.
VMX42

[LWC82PE]

polishing and good preparation is definitly not an issue for me, and can do all that very well my self. ive had some swing arms done in Adelaide so i know what they are like. im not after a mirror or chrome finish i just want a bright silver finish like original. i might try polishing my rims a bit brighter than my swing arm and see how they turn out like. since im so far from Adelaide and cant get to business during the week to see samples of their work so  i just send stuff down by courier for them to do with no hassles.

I rang another annodizer today that ive never used before and they said they can do hard annodising but when the person on the phone went to check on a firm pricing they said bike rims cant be done as you end up with crazing or cracking which surprised me. I kind of got the idea they didnt know much about bike parts as they said they would need to see the item first to work out the contact points.

After a couple hours of searching I finally found an article I was looking for in issue May 05 of Dirt Action magazine. It was a feature on a Melbourne company called Electromold Xtreme coatings. They do a lot of anodizing of bike stuff. From the article I got the impression that the anodizing they do on rims is not hard and they only do hard anodizing on suspension components. I will probably ring them next week but if they don’t do hard anodizing of rims then I think I will just use a local annodizer and just get normal anodizing done on them. Its just that I thought hard anodizing may be the better option if that’s what everyone was doing.

so i guess the key thing i just want to know is -are people getting rims hard annodized or just normal non-hard annodized?

[YSS]

You asked the question, yes we have hard anodised  our rims using the same bath as for the suspension parts, but I think if you have to pay somone for it , its an overkill and very expensive. I remember about 10 years ago , I made some billett havey duty cl;utch baskets for Yamahas , the cost then was $600.00 for 10 Baskets to get hard anodised in Adelaide.Probably alot more today.

[LWC82PE]

so how much is it to hard annodise just one rim in silver? what would you charge? that should give me an idea if people are getting it done or just using normal annodising. about $70-$120pair seems to be like the going price for normal annodizing. (that doesnt include polishing). by the sounds of it no one gets their rims hard annodised if they have to pay for it. if thats the case it makes it easier for me as i just have to send the rims to Adelaide.

also since you say you can hard annodize rims then it must of been rubbish what one place told me about how you get crazing if you hard annodize a bike rim.

i wonder what type of annodizing is on the rims you buy eg excel. DID, sun, SM pro etc?

[YSS]

You can buy new DID rims so cheap from Link International in any colour and size , why would you bother polishing old fatigued rims and pay to anodise them 

[LWC82PE]

the new DID rims are not same profile as old takasagos. i only reason i need these rims because they are for a bike i want/need original rims.. they are in good condition and not cracked and an extremly lucky find and were actually a gift!. this bike is also not for racing. i dont have the time to search for nos suzuki rims if they exist. its also a pain to try and get rims for drum brake bikes. you always gotta buy universal rims for disc brake hubs and modify the holes, done that before and i dont like doing that. and then if you wanna be picky the modified drilled holes then expose raw alloy where the nipples go and moisture can get in and start attacking the raw alloy. for my other bike i will probably get some Sun rims. i would go for Excel if i could get them undrilled but i dont like their orange gold colour. i was going to get Morads but they work out to be more than Excels plus dont come in gold so i would have to find someone who annodizes gold and not bloody orange!

[husky61]

Follow the advise of VMX 42 forget the rest.