• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Windscreen aluminum - clearcoat or not?

Share this page

JodyFKerr

JodyFKerr

Jedi Knight
Offline
Hey Folks,

I'm getting ready to reassemble the windscreen on the '69 Sprite project. When I stripped the aluminum windscreen surround it appears like it had a clearcoat on it. Otherwise that was some epic aluminum oxide. My question to you guys is should I polish and clearcoat the aluminum surround or just polish it before reassembly.

I'm looking for the "correct" answer (e.g. how it came from the factory).

Thanks!
Jody
 
I believe the windshield frames were polished and then anodized from the factory.
 
I clear coated mine after polishing. They might tarnish quicker than you expected if you don't.
 
Hrm, anodizing looks like it's a fairly simple process, but the sizes of the windscreen parts is wierd, so I don't think it'll be easy.

Anyone have any experiences with anodizing they'd like to share?
 
Check with some local machine shops and see if they send parts for anodizing. See if they can send your parts along with a batch of theirs which might save some money or see if you can find out the place they use and contact them directly.

I would recommend leaving the old anodize on until you talk to them. The anodize shop can remove it without brushing it. And then only brush enough to restore blemishes.

If they mention "hard coat" anodize I recommend looking at a sample first. Hard coat would be darker than plain clear coat.

And don't worry about the size of the parts. The dip tanks most any shop would have would be far larger than these windshield parts are. They like to do full batches which is why you probably would save money combining with a batch being sent in by a machine shop.

And you will find the cost based on the sq area of the parts being finished.
 
Tom,

Good advice! Thanks! I'll poke around. I did already strip the parts as they had a lot of scratches and impoerfections that needed to be polished out. I'm just shy of the buffing wheel stage. Should I get a full buffing on them first since I've already stripped them down?

Jody
 
Jody,

I would take them as they are and ask what they would recommend. You don't want to add work or raise the cost that is not needed or cause a problem that might show up later. Anodize is a very thin coating that will not fill or cover mistakes.
 
Jody, this is a pic of a tool I designed and built. The top shelf is brushed aluminum with plain clear coat. The front piece with the "Pitch/Degrees" on it is aluminum with hard-coat anodize.
 

Attachments

  • 004.jpg
    004.jpg
    43.3 KB · Views: 96
How does the cost of anodizing compare with rechroming? The cost of rechroming has gotten so high that I avoid it.

Kurt.
 
tomshobby said:
It is a fraction of the cost but a completely different thing.
I should have explained that anodize is a fraction the cost of chrome.
Click to expand...

Good to know and of course one isn't going to chrome aluminum or anodize a bumper. Though my windshield frames on my BE appear to have been chromed! [flaking also]
 
Back
Top