Removing gold anodic coating from pinball legs
billg4me@yahoo.com
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Some pinball machines come with factory installed "gold" legs.
These can be found on machines like Indiana Jones, World Cup Soccer 94, Theatre
of Magic, The Addams Family Gold and others. The process of creating
"gold" legs is accomplished through the process of anodizing. Over time, the anodic coating can get beat up, trashed out and look
bad. To make a
pin look new again, people usually replace the ratty looking gold legs with new
ones. Like many pinball collectors, I have a hard time throwing away
parts just because they
are beat up and looking old. I had some restoration projects that needed
new legs, so I thought why can't I refinish the gold legs and use them.
The idea was to remove the gold finish/coating to show the nice chrome finish
underneath.
To refinish the gold pinball legs I first tried using a buffing
wheel, but didn't like the results and it required too much effort.
Getting a bit frustrated, I turned to Google
Groups and put in the words "remove anodizing". As usual, Google saved
the day and came up with multiple discussion threads on how to remove an
anodized coating. To my surprise the chemical used is a common house
hold product. The answer is, drum roll please, oven cleaner!
This guide is put together share the information and tips I gathered while
using oven cleaner to remove the anodic gold coating from pinball legs. Your
results may vary, but I found that underneath a beat up set of gold legs is a
nice shiny chrome finish. Click on pictures for their full image.
Safety Note: Oven cleaner is nasty stuff, so use
it outside in a well ventilated area and wear protective gloves. The toxic
chemical is lye.
I'm sure any oven cleaner will
do, but I chose to Easy-Off's cleaner. I chose the "heavy
duty" variety to hopefully cut down on time. Shake up the
can for a minute or two and you're ready to go. |
Easy Off Oven Cleaner
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Here are two gold pinball legs
that have seen better times. I've used two so that a good
comparison can be made before and after using the oven cleaner.
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Two
bad gold legs
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Here's a close up of the gold
leg on the right. You can see the outside edge has been worn
through to the finish below. Overall the gold finish is
splotchy and even includes some light surface rust.
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Bad leg - close up
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Before applying the oven cleaner, choose a work area that's well ventilated. A shady spot under a tree would be
best. The shade is helpful in keeping the oven cleaner from drying
out. I also used a sheet of plywood and covered it with a sheet or
two of newspaper. This makes for easy cleanup
afterwards.
The leg doesn't require much preparation before spraying it with
oven cleaner. Just make sure it's somewhat clean so the
oven cleaner can soak in and do its work I first sprayed the
inside of the leg, turned it over, and then sprayed the outside and
bottom.
Leave the cleaner on for a good hour. Next, check how the
cleaner is working by wiping an area of the leg with some
newspaper. You should see a nice clean chrome finish
underneath. Some of the surface rust was even removed. Clean up the rest of the leg by wiping
off the cleaner
with more newspaper. Once the cleaner has been removed, rinse
with some soapy water. Wipe the leg dry and let the sun remove
any remaining moisture.
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Apply oven cleaner
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After an hour of the oven cleaner doing its job, there were still
a couple of areas that remained with the gold anodized
coating. I sprayed the leg again and that did the trick!
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Two applications does
the trick |
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Here's the finished result. You can see there's quite a big
difference between the legs. The leg on the right was once
gold plated just like the one on the left.
I was so surprised by the results that the leg didn't need to be
buffed out. It looks that nice.
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Like new leg |
Here's a close up picture
showing in greater detail the difference between the two original
gold legs. |
New legs - close up |
There's plenty more to keep you busy!
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Many more legs to work on! | |
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