Painting anodised aluminium

[Wozzaaah]

Got a couple of bike rims I'd like to paint satin black and want to maximise my chances of getting the paint to stay on.
At the moment they're just normal silver rims so I'm guessing they're anodised.
I was thinking a good clean with some fine wire wool and soapy water then etch primer but one site I came across said primer isn't necessary on anodised alu as long as you don't go though to the bare alu, just a good clean followed by the top coat and the job's a good'un.
Wassreckonthen?

 

[rkde]

As long as you don't go through the anodising layer you will be fine, just do a light key, etch primer and so on, you could most likely get away without the primer but it wont do any harm

 

[Wozzaaah]

Thanks Richard.
That article suggested no primer at all is necessary as long as the anodising isn't compromised but I suppose if I use etch anyway it won't really matter if I have gone through it.

 

[Chipper]

Praps it depends on the anodising but that's a smooth surface with very little key. Sanding it can be a mother too, and I'm not sure if etch will actually do anything, i.e. etch.. as it's not bare metal.
I did some anodised bike (motorbike) wheels and had to get medieval on their a*ses to get a key.. Left untouched I'd expect paint to fall off fairly soon.

 

[GeorgiePorgie]

Sorry to revive an old post but.....

Anyone thinking of Anodising Ally stuff? and wish it to be a certain colour? this article is a must for just doing that with a permanent none scratch surface.

The Article.....
http://astro.neutral.org/anodise4.shtml


The source for the Acid...
http://astro.neutral.org/anodise4.shtml

 

[langy]

Anodised ally can be primed with Epoxy primer after a light key.

Praps it depends on the anodising but that's a smooth surface with very little key. Sanding it can be a mother too, and I'm not sure if etch will actually do anything, i.e. etch.. as it's not bare metal.
I did some anodised bike (motorbike) wheels and had to get medieval on their a*ses to get a key.. Left untouched I'd expect paint to fall off fairly soon.

 

[Chipper]

Guess it depends on the anodizing but when I did my bike wheels there was no way you could give it a light key, paper just slid over the surface. I cut the surface up a bit first with jewellers files and 40 grit, once broken up a bit it was poss to key it, but still hard going. I did epoxy them after.

 

[Engineer]

Decorative and hard anodised finishes are entirely different, in the case of hard anodised I doubt very much it would be possible to easily key for paint finish, in the case of decorative very easy to sand through.

 

[GeorgiePorgie]

oops! posted a double link in my post,here's the place for the acid.
http://www.reagent.co.uk/sulphuric-acid-ar/sulphuric-acid-lrg.html

 

[Wozzaaah]

Thanks for all the replies but I'm sorted now, picked up these today for the princely sum of 20 quid the pair.