Andodized Aluminum?

I have a customer asking if i can polish his aluminum bumpers on his 85 BMW 7xx series. Now from what ive heard they are anodized.

So my question is how can they be polished without removing the anodize? And what products to use.

Ive heard of people just removing the anodized finish which would leave the aluminum unprotected. but is the only way to really get it to shine.

 

I wouldn't touch it because you're probably going to mess up the finish on it. Also, anodized coatings are very hard!

 

I know zip about these specific bumpers and I'm not a materials science expert so take this with a grain of salt but I have worked with anodized aluminum and titanium in other industries. Anodizing basically creates an oxide layer on the very surface. As Jesse notes it is hard but you can abrade it. Attempts to polish it seems to me to be a box you don't want to open, at least not without a clearly worded, signed waiver from your client. If you polish off the ano layer you would need to replace it with some other coating that is at least a partial oxygen barrier. It probably could be re-anodized but most anodization is done on smaller parts and you may have trouble finding a facility that can do an entire bumper plus you would pay a fortune unless they can combine it with larger batch of other pieces.