RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

From the long view the first cheapest tub pan turned out pretty great. I enjoyed working on it so a I bought another super cheap pan as a project. It was listed as being in rough shape and came with and came with a nose piece .

I was almost disappointed at how good of a shape it’s actually in. Besides the “speed holes” it’s flat and straight.

The plan is to deanodize it, fill the holes with JB weld high temp and smooth it out.

I have gleaned from some of the post here the high temp jb weld is suitable for powder coating. I can fill the gaps and then decide later if I just want to wrap the chassis or get it powder coated.

Soaking in a bag of greased lightning to deanodize it.
The bag makes it easier to get the fluid abound the sides.

JosephS wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:50 pm 1FCDA169-30A7-4EF0-B9AE-82654CE7E99A.jpeg2348F28F-B302-457A-9A9D-848B550178D7.jpeg

Soaking in a bag of greased lightning to deanodize it.
The bag makes it easier to get the fluid abound the sides.

Go figure I accidentally polish some of the anodize off a nice chassis and on this junk one it's sticking like oxide on aluminum.

Going to have to soak this a second day.

Heavy duty Easy Off, yellow can.

juicedcoupe wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:06 pm Heavy duty Easy Off, yellow can.

I just went there and the can was out of propellant.

Thank you for the pictures. Interesting! I've always been curious about this whole process. I have an RC10T chassis and didn't know you had to remove the anodizing. The filling in the scratches part is what I am most curious about. I guess you are doing this before you send to powdercoating.

TokyoProf wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 10:47 am Thank you for the pictures. Interesting! I've always been curious about this whole process. I have an RC10T chassis and didn't know you had to remove the anodizing. The filling in the scratches part is what I am most curious about. I guess you are doing this before you send to powdercoating.

I'm not sure what path I may go in terms of the finish process. I have some carbon fiber and epoxy from a chassis project that I haven't completed yet. I may just cosmetically wrap it. I would try and follow this tutorial if I do.

Once the anodizing is off, I am going to fill the holes with JB then remove the scratches by sanding. I use a large sheet of paper and a ceramic tile as the sanding surface. Once I start sanding I can see If the chassis is true enough. If it isn't I will use some fill to get it flat. I think I only need a flat smooth surface, not a polished one.

This is after using easy off yellow can and a light scrub of steel wool . I tried greased lightning for the first pass. Some anodizing is stuck in the corners and under the lip of the chassis. So I applied some more and will keep waiting.

I’ll take some pictures after this but using easy off leave a black soot on the chassis similar look to to anodize but it scrubs off very easy. It also puts pits in the metal.

The black stuff is called smut and it's from the alloy type. Using the lye, you have to be really careful that you don't let it eat the chassis, which causes the pitting. I've done it where I use heavy gloves, and apply the easy off inside of an empty bucket and scrub with a disposable paint brush, then dunk in a nearby bucket of clean water to weaken the lye. You can control removal pretty well that way.

jwscab wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 4:26 pm The black stuff is called smut and it's from the alloy type. Using the lye, you have to be really careful that you don't let it eat the chassis, which causes the pitting. I've done it where I use heavy gloves, and apply the easy off inside of an empty bucket and scrub with a disposable paint brush, then dunk in a nearby bucket of clean water to weaken the lye. You can control removal pretty well that way.

Is there a shortcut to remove smut?

JosephS wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 5:27 pm
Is there a shortcut to remove smut?

I just stripped and polished a set of shocks.

After stripping them with Easy-Off, I used a brass wheel on a rotary tool to remove the smut and any remaining anodizing specks. After that, I used medium and fine sanding blocks to prep the surfaces before polishing.

juicedcoupe wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 6:33 pm

JosephS wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 5:27 pm
Is there a shortcut to remove smut?

I just stripped and polished a set of shocks.

After stripping them with Easy-Off, I used a brass wheel on a rotary tool to remove the smut and any remaining anodizing specks. After that, I used medium and fine sanding blocks to prep the surfaces before polishing.

Makes sense to me. I was hoping to hear vinegar or something like that would desmut. I am going to avoid rotary tools In The hope of avoiding circular grooves I got in my last chassis.

There is a desmut solution that is used in production shops. No idea what it is.

Scotchbrite works really well and can leave a random like finish.

Once the anodizing was removed it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to remove the deep scratches without power tools. I used a 80git flap wheel on my drill and that was allowing me to spot remove scratches. I’ll have to remove the scratches first and then sand second.

I got about halfway though the bottom before the battery gave out

I got though the rest of the scratches on the bottom of the chassis.
I traded deep scratches front to back for divots side to side.

Now is the point that I will start using the epoxy to fill the bonus holes. Once that hardens I will sand things flat.