The Official 356Talk Forum

Hello all, I dropped off my bumper trims yesterday to the polishers to see if they could be resurrected, and he asked if I was going to have them anodised. He thought, from looking at the best bits where the rubbers had been, this was the original finish, I thought they were just polished ally is he correct? It is also interesting to note the weight diference between the originals and the modern replacements and one from sometime in the 70's, they are much lighter.

Thought you might like to see a picture of the first time I saw KCT in the 1st top coat, it came as somewhat of a nice 'shock' after all these years of it being a project.
V&S

I have some true NOS deco's (not 70's or 80's production) on my '57 and call tell you that those are bare and not anodized like the later deco's

53248 decos were not annodized

Original decos on 53449 are not anodized. According to Johnson's book the windshield and rear window moldings were not bright anodized until the T6 bodies; presumably the same for bumper and rocker decos.
She looks beautiful in blue!

Thanks for your help, I didn't think they would have been and, although it was nice and shiney where the rubber had been protecting the ally, it didn't seem to me to have the same glossiness as the 1970's replacement I have hanging up and certainly nothing like those from Stoddards I bought a couple of years ago.
V

Dingo my Ziwi metal guy told me you can remove anodizing using conventional oven cleaner. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to dabble with some windshield trim pieces.

Fine sandpaper certainly removes it nicely.

Martin Benade wrote:Fine sandpaper certainly removes it nicely.

What grit would you recommend for starting off with and final grit ?
Wet sand I presume ?

600 is good to start, and then 1200 or 1500 will be smooth enough to buff up pretty easily. Gouges and scrapes can even be filed and sanded with coarser paper such as 220, then just work up to the finer grits. Done carefully a pretty poor part can be made beautiful.