Anyone have any experience or try removing the anodizing from an aluminum case? I've read that aluminum can be unanozided using a degreaser and a brush but am not sure if that works. Any help or input is appreciated, mahalo!
Degreaser will not work to my knowledge. The anodized layer is a chemical conversion process. Mechanical removal is the only way. The biggest reason to go with a shop that does anodizing is because they already have to tooling required to do this without destroying the part. The same process is essentially done before the part is anodized anyway because anything will screw up the results including oils from just touching the part with bare fingers. Though that is taken care of in one of the dips before the actual anodize is done. Anodizing aluminum with color is essentially corroding the part a determined and very exact amount and adding a pigment to the process. This is why custom colors are so expensive. The shop has to do an entire tank worth of mix just for your part. But when doing a run of multiple parts they get many parts per batch of mix.
Also, the only difference between "hard" and "soft" anodizing is the depth of penetration. The layer of corrosion that makes up the anodize is actually harder than the base material. This is where the "hard" and "soft" terms come from. The deeper the corrosion layer the higher the new surface hardness is. Though it will still dent when dropped on concrete.
