Have any of ya'll had your aluminum bumpers, six pack rack or handle bars anodized? How well will the anodizing hold up? Cost? I really think that I want mine blue anodized but not sure it will hold up.

 

Sorry to not answer your questions but I just read the latest Popular Science and they had an interesting article on aluminum. Anodization is literally a heavy surface coat of rust. That and Mercury will eat aluminum like mad.
Aluminum is a very reactive metal that forms aluminum oxide quickly, it's that outer surface of alum oxide that keeps it from deteriorating quickly so anodizing recreates it's natural action and just puts a heavier coating on. Aluminum oxide is one of the toughest substances, close to diamond. Anodizing holds up better than natural alum and polishing. The only thing I can think of is that if it starts looking bad, you couldn't polish it unless you want to strip the anodization off. To do that you coat it with oven cleaner and let it soak.

 

Wow.
Did you read that at a Holiday Inn Express?

 

We anodize parts where I work. They are hi performance parts for fluid delivery. The red & blue fittings you see on race cars. The look really cool but when I had them on my Mustang if you even tighten them down with a regular wrench (as opposed to an aluminum wrench) you will mar them easily.

 

mystereid - dang, you did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

I had several parts on my quad anodized. Its very durable, but there are two types - Regular and Hard anodizing. The hard is simply the best - holds up the longest and its what they put on the outside of aluminum frying pans. If you try to engrave it (and I am not being specific about what you engrave) count on getting new engraving bits after 10 small size letters! I had parts done in red, black, blue. They all hold up very very well - If you can get hard anodizing - thats the best choice.

 

Also, I've seen whole rims anodized as well - thats pretty trick and no more need to polish!

 

Thanks for the info. Looks like I'll be looking into hard anodizing.

 

I had my rear rims annodized. Still holding up. I was going to have them hard coated for durability. It was twice the price. Settled for regular and very happy. I had skiis on a snowmobile Teflon hard coated. You could not believe how well that stood up. FYI, I costed $80 for two rims and would have been $150 for hard coat.