Aluminum body trim

[Rooster27]

Hey guys, super excited to be apart of this forum and looking forward to the wealth on knowledge of these beautiful pieces of work. A couple years ago my father-in-law and I started to do a light restoration on his 1966 Charger. He gave me all the trim pieces when it was off at paint. Most of the chromed stuff cleaned up good, but the aluminum trim that goes along the entire car was in rough shape. The anodized finish was oxidized and when that happens is impossible to polish out. The only remedy for this is to strip the anodizing off to get the trim down to raw aluminum. This was accomplished by using a lye solution and was dipped in for about 5 min on each piece, and then rinsed with water. From there the prices were wet sanded by hand with 3000 grit and and then polished by hand to a chrome like finish. This trim is much easier to maintain and polish since it is raw aluminum and in my opinion looks much better. Check out my video on youtube for a short tutorial here

 

[dadsbee]

Very NICE! Do me a big favour and take that ring off before you get anywhere near a power buffer!

 

[Rooster27]

Very NICE! Do me a big favour and take that ring off before you get anywhere near a power buffer!

Thanks man! Yeah I've been doing this for a bit and when I run a polisher my left hand is on the guiding end. If you have instagrM my handle is @trillosautodetailing

 

[440 4 speed]

Yes don’t have any thing on your hands when grinding/polishing things, in any circumstance .If you wear heavy gloves, you an avoid that problem.

 

[CudaChick1968]

Welcome aboard!

The hobby needs qualified trim restorers. I don't take it on very often -- too much powder work to do lol -- because it's so tedious and time consuming. But the end results are very satisfying. Most of the stuff I've seen would laugh at starting with 3000 grit though ... heavy scratches and gouges need a lot of work before even getting close to fine wet and dry.

X2 on taking that ring off kiddo.

Enjoy the boards! You will do well here when the word gets around.

 

[moparedtn]

First...


Now, concerning the refinishing of that anodized stuff....
I attempted to do some of that with the original wheel opening moldings
on my GTX (they were BAD!). I bought all manner of different stuff, from
oven cleaner to other cleansers. I soaked parts, scrubbed parts, all that....
and was an abject failure (actually got sore from all the scrubbing ).
I therefore tip my hat to you, sir.
Beautiful work!

 

[Rooster27]

Welcome aboard!

The hobby needs qualified trim restorers. I don't take it on very often -- too much powder work to do lol -- because it's so tedious and time consuming. But the end results are very satisfying. Most of the stuff I've seen would laugh at starting with 3000 grit though ... heavy scratches and gouges need a lot of work before even getting close to fine wet and dry.

X2 on taking that ring off kiddo.

Enjoy the boards! You will do well here when the word gets around.

Yeah it was super time consuming, but very satisfying in the end, the trim wasn't in too bad of shape actually as far as gouges and scratches were concerned somi lucked out in that aspect!

 

[Rooster27]

First...
View attachment 951786

Now, concerning the refinishing of that anodized stuff....
I attempted to do some of that with the original wheel opening moldings
on my GTX (they were BAD!). I bought all manner of different stuff, from
oven cleaner to other cleansers. I soaked parts, scrubbed parts, all that....
and was an abject failure (actually got sore from all the scrubbing ).
I therefore tip my hat to you, sir.
Beautiful work!

Thank you! Yeah my forearms and hand were pretty toast after that!

 

[moparedtn]

Thank you! Yeah my forearms and hand were pretty toast after that!

I feel your pain.
Well, if anything else, you got a thumbs up and a new subscriber on YT.

 

[Rooster27]

I feel your pain.
Well, if anything else, you got a thumbs up and a new subscriber on YT.

Thanks man!

 

[VFilms]

Now comes the hard part. Keeping it look like new. I did the same thing to the trim on my '66 Belvedere. Looks great, but didn't know how to keep it from tarnishing. There are many posts about this here, from annual polishing to clear coating to re-anodising. I stilll haven't decided which course to take. Good luck, looks great.

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

I had the aluminum grille on my 63 Plymouth stripped and polished by our own member 5.7 HEMI. Zack made the grille look like jewelry!
I like it better than the OEM anabrite.