I love the look of a raw aluminum yoyo. I want to get one of my 888x’s completey raw. what would I need to do to get rid of the anodization? OTHER THAN sanding it off. IF I use chemicals to strip it, will the metal oxidize and turn ugly? please somebody help me with this.
P.S. I also have access to a lathe and polishing equiptment.
Chuck it in the lathe and use successively finer grits of sand paper. Finish off w/very fine (1000 grit) wet/dry paper wet and then polish. Probably start wit 150 or 200 grit, work up to 300, 600 wet/dry paper)
Have it bead blasted.
I said other than sanding it. any idea how dipping it in some mineral spirits would work? would it do anything?
I mentioned sanding because that is the easiest way, especially if you have a lathe. Don’t like my advice, fine, ignore it. Others may find it useful.
Dipping in mineral spirits is useless - it’s not a painted surface. Other than stripping with harsh chemicals, sanding it off is the easiest unless you have immediate access to a bead blaster, which it seems you don’t. If chemicals are used you still need to refinish w/sand paper/polish or bead blast/polish.
One thing I’m curious about on the op’s original post.
If you have access to a lathe I assume you know how to use it? If you do know, why do you need to ask about ways to strip?
One would think with the mechanical aptitude to utilize a lathe you wouldn’t need to ask about stripping.
I’m 16, It’s my dad’s. Also, what would owning a lathe have to do with knowing how to CHEMICALLY de-anodize a yoyo? I didn’t want to use the lathe to sand the yoyo, because the small grooves are difficult to sand.
It’s not that I don’t like your advice, I’ve sanded yoyos before the way you’ve mentioned, it’s just I was curious about using chemicals to strip the ano. Thanks for the note on mineral spirits, I used oven cleaner to strip the ano, then polished lightly. It left me with a semi-shiny surface, not quite mirrored, but shiny. Grinds as well if not better than other yyf bead-blasted finishes.
Glad it worked for you.