[Chunkstyle]

hey --

i'm going to try a home-brew red anodizing job on some aluminum bmx brakes. i used sodium hydroxide (drano) to strip off the old gold ano. worked well -- a bit slower than i'd expected. however, when trying to polish the bare alum in prep for the new anodizing, it's not polishing up real easily -- like there may still be some hard alum oxide present from the old coating (i'm assuming that all needs to go before re-anodizing). usually, when i'm polishing alum, it "mirrors up" pretty fast. in this case, it's kinda slow going. how can you tell if the old oxide coating is completely gone? does the old dye coming off signify that, or is there more to it than just that?

i'm leery of soaking the parts in the caustic bath for too long.

i'd appreciate any info anyone could offer.

thanks!