Anodizing Forks

[671M900]

So I'm gonna tear down the forks over the weekend to change the fork seals, and I've wanted to have the forks anodized gold for the longest time. Now, do the stock adjustable showas on my 900 need anything done to anodize them gold? Like, are they already anodized "clear" if that makes sense? Or are they pretty much ready to anodize after a good cleaning?

An alternate option would be to use some Metalcast paint. I've used it on some miscellaneous bike parts and they turn out wonderful, but I'm not sure how they would hold up on the forks with the triples clamped over it.

[DucHead]

I sent my forks to Ducati Omaha.  They disassembled them, had the parts anodized and reassembled, then shipped back to me.

[Speeddog]

Take them to an Anodizing shop, have them strip the clear that's on there and re-anodize gold.

Be aware that the gold will fade slowly with sunlight exposure.

[He Man]

what kind of gold does Ohlins use? Some of my anodizied parts like my woodcraft clutch cover just never seem to fade.

[671M900]

Take them to an Anodizing shop, have them strip the clear that's on there and re-anodize gold.

Be aware that the gold will fade slowly with sunlight exposure.

I'm aware, but wouldn't gold last the longest? What does ohlin's use? Iirc hard anodizing isn't available in gold.

[Speeddog]

Yes, hard ano is not available in gold.

I've no idea what Ohlins does, it looks like gold ano, but likely it's proprietary.

[jmoth79]

How do you strip the clear coat?

I heard that hard anodizing adds thickness.  Do you have to have the fork tubes re-bored after anodizing?
If so,  does anyone know the correct bore diameter and tolerances?

[Speeddog]

I've had several sets of forks anodized for customers, and one set for myself.
All were done in hard black anodize, other than one set in gold.

Hard ano does indeed add to the surface, typically about 0.001".
I've not noticed any significant buildup due to the hard anodize, IMO primarily due to the stripping of the clear anodize.
The top caps thread in just like before, everything fits, no binding.

Don't bother trying to strip anything yourself, that's what the anodizing shop is for.

 

[jmoth79]

Don't bother trying to strip anything yourself, that's what the anodizing shop is for.

 

Does every set of stock fork tubes have a clear coat?  Mine definetly have a coat of clear.  As I tried applying some aluminium polish and
there was no resulting black haze. 
My anodizing shop said that in regards to stripping the clear,  all they can do is bead blast the outer surfaces.  Would this be sufficient?
If so, that is something that I can do myself. 
If chemical stripping is needed,  what is a good one to use?  Anybody have experience with this?

[671M900]

Does every set of stock fork tubes have a clear coat?  Mine definetly have a coat of clear.  As I tried applying some aluminium polish and
there was no resulting black haze. 
My anodizing shop said that in regards to stripping the clear,  all they can do is bead blast the outer surfaces.  Would this be sufficient?
If so, that is something that I can do myself. 
If chemical stripping is needed,  what is a good one to use?  Anybody have experience with this?

I think there's a clear anodizing coat, I guess. If needed, I do have a big soda blaster, but I don't know hos effective that is for that. Looking for a good ano shop on the island, but not turning up any hits unfortunately.

[Speeddog]

AFAIK:

All the forks have a clear anodizing on them from the factory.
The anodizing can be removed with an electro-chemical process, essentially the reverse of the anodizing.
Then the new anodizing can be applied.

I never interrogated the Anodize Shop on how they did it.... I took the parts in, said I wanted them hard black anodized (or plain gold anodize).... they said they would strip and re-anodize.

None of the fork legs I've had done were bead-blasted.

[badgalbetty]

I anodized my forls several years ago. A decent shop will be able to do this with no problems. Good luck!

[gage]

I had mine done in hard anodized - The shop did all the stripping and it was a chemical process - a good shop should do this with no problem. The chemical stripping process actually disolves some of the aluminum also which is built back up by the oxidation (ANo) process.

To give you a rough idea of what you should be paying: mine were $125 and I had like 9 parts done at once.

[He Man]

pics?

was it $125 for both tubes + your bits?

thats a good price that i could go for. but i want ohlins gold and i dont want it to fade....

[gage]

Pics here - this was a few years ago though and they didn't do colors other than hard ano black and chromating.

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=18678.0