How to restore/repaint metal FXT chassis tub?

[R6cowboy]

Restoring a couple old Futaba FXT stadium trucks. Just got one completely disassembled and need to refinish the chassis that's scratched up pretty bad. Please correct me if I'm wrong, is the factory chassis originally anodized aluminum..?? This is the first time dealing with something like this, not sure which direction to go. Can these chassis' be powder coated? If so, what's the process of removing the old original coating/anodize? I'm afraid the heating process of powder coating would warp the chassis, which is only 1.5mm or 1/16" thick. Or do I just prep the chassis and repaint it with high quality spray paint? Do people spray these with automotive body paint? The truck will be ran again (not real hard though) once I'm done so I would like the chassis coating to be as durable as possible. Or, are there companies that deal with this kind of stuff that you send your RC chassis to and they refinish it for you?
This is all new to me, so all options are appreciated. Below is pics of the top and bottom of chassis. Thanks for any help.

[coxbros1]

You can paint it but it won't be very reliable from scratches, this was painted with automotive lacquer then cleared... I run it lightly but it's mainly for the shelf

[juicedcoupe]

If you know someone who is handy with a Cricket printer, they could do vinyl overlays.

[threesheds]

I've thought about sacrificial layers , proverbial sticky back plastic for parts exposed to scratching

[Coelacanth]

Removing the old anodizing should be easy enough. Use Easy-Off oven cleaner, the heavy duty one with the yellow cap. Spray on, let it soak for several minutes, then scrub it off. That's how I do all my deanodizing.

Getting rid of the scratches will be a much tougher proposition...

That said, even if you just got it down to bare aluminum, and followed that up with some wet-sanding...I'd start with 800, 1000 and 1500 grit if you didn't care about the scratches...that would get you a pretty decent, shiny aluminum gloss. It would look much better than it is now, but the scratches would still be the issue. You could go to town up to 2000 grit and an automotive polish & polisher for a near-mirror-like gloss finish.

[R6cowboy]

Removing the old anodizing should be easy enough. Use Easy-Off oven cleaner, the heavy duty one with the yellow cap. Spray on, let it soak for several minutes, then scrub it off. That's how I do all my deanodizing.

Getting rid of the scratches will be a much tougher proposition...

Is removing the old anodize only necessary if you're going to powder coat it? Due to the chassis needing to be bare metal. If going the painting route, would it be ideal to just wet sand the chassis then apply etching primer, paint and clear? Or is deanodizing better regardless? Even though I'd really like to powder coat the chassis if possible. My brother powder coats at his shop and I could have it done at no cost, I'm just afraid it will get ruined/warped from the heat of baking. I have no clue how much heat 16gauge aluminum can take. Too bad these things aren't reman'd and can't be replaced, otherwise I just powder coat it as a test dumbie and if it gets warped, I'd just caulk it up and buy another.

As far as the boatload of scratches, I guess all I can do is sand down the rough/high spots as smooth as possible and call it good. There's no way to make it look brand new, but at least I can do my best to make it not look like shat.

[Coelacanth]

Hmm, some of those things, I've never tried or considered. One question I can answer though is don't try to wet-sand anodized aluminum. Anodizing is very hard and it'll be a righteous pain to sand off. Easy-Off will remove the anodizing with minimal effort. I don't know how powdercoating will work on an anodized aluminum surface. I would guess that removing the anodizing first would be less likely to cause issues with powdercoating. I had a DW double-bass drum pedal that had previous old red powdercoating flaking off and removed it all first by sandblasting it, before having it re-powdercoated black. The finished new powdercoat looked beautiful. That was steel though, not aluminum.

[scr8p]

I doubt the chassis would have a problem with heat. Guys powder coat rc10 chassis all the time.

[Lowgear]

Yes, the FXT chassis came from the factory black anodized aluminum.

The method to remove it entails using oven cleaner like mentioned. You have to be extremely vigilant with it since it's caustic which means it eats aluminum. You have to leave it on just long enough to remove the anodize. If it's left on too long, the bare aluminum will turn black and can potentially ruin the chassis.

Powder coating an aluminum chassis is a pretty popular thing like also mentioned. You can do a search on here for examples. A word of caution with the powder coating is it's thick. It has to be carefully removed from the countersunk screw holes or the fasteners will no longer be able to seat flush. I've also noticed that on aluminum at least, it leaves an orange peel surface finish, and can sometimes look droopy in areas due to how thick it is. It hides scratches pretty good though as a result.

Last but not least, I'd advise against sandblasting it. I glass beaded one years ago, and it badly etched the aluminum. Sanding down the surface may fix it but between the blasting and sanding, it would leave the already thinnish material even thinner. Maybe soda blasting would be a better option.

[Busajedi]

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Nice looking mold. Please check out the rules section and hope to see you stick around because you are in the right place for this content.
Thanx
Todd

[R6cowboy]

This is nice to hear. I never did get back to making mine yet. I'll still give it a go just to get the experience, even though I'll buy a handful for the TBG bodies. Need to do it regardless since I need to make new Kyosho Pro-XRT bodies as well.
Really glad your persistence at convincing TBG to repo the body paid off.