Brightening faded window frames

I got a call from a building owner that has 97 windows. It’s a forest service building so all the windows are brown. Each frame is faded on the outside. Weather/water etc. He wants them shined up.

Does anyone have a suggestion about a chemical or process to help brighten them. They are metal with brown paint as far as I can tell.

Tell him to hire a painter

Tell him to hire a mobile anodizer. :smiley:

No, seriously, isn’t there some type of oil that could be applied?

it the frames are anodized aluminum and not powder coated or painted, you could safe restore and use ART from eacochem.

check out my vid at the bottom of the page to get some ideas

Window Cleaning | Window Washing Service | Orange County, Ca | Los Angeles, Ca

(keep in mind it was an unscripted video which I now regret)
hope it helps though

That is awesome stuff, Chris! How long does it take for the top coat to dry?

Thanks Tony. I think it will be a good service in the future after we get a couple more projects under our belt.

The A.R.T takes about 12 hours to set. You don’t want to apply it as I did though, you only want to make one clean pass or swipe.

One gallon covers about one mile of anodized frame

What is the cost of a gallon?

pricey- like $130 per gallon.

Do you mind sharing what you charge per lineal ft?

I don’t have a price or metric system and if I did, I would share it.

I just do a test section and see how long it takes to restore, and then glazing it is the easy part. The tough part is figuring out the cost of saferestore and time involved in cleaning the frame. The sealer is the easy part.

I usually bid these about double my wc though cause most wc’s haven’t offered this service yet. In fact, not many people even know it exists.

Thanks Chris. I’ll be looking into it.

please keep me updated if you do any projects and I will do the same. I think it’s an interesting venture to look into

Will do!:wink:

Thanks Kris! That looks great. I figured there must be something to pop it back into shape. Might lead to more $ as an add-on. Excellent.

Now to find out whether the frame anodized aluminum.

Thanks man, glad you chimed in.

-Eric

Interestingly it says “This system will not restore pitted anodized aluminum. Once pitting has occurred, exposing bare metal, only repainting will fix the surface. Store in a cool dry place.”
From recall, I think most of stuff round here is pitted. But thanks for the info - I’ve bookmarked it.

Yes. Very impressive. I always thought anidization of aluminum could only be done at the factory through acid bath and chem coat. And you say it looks as good as it did in your video the next day? I’ve tried a couple of things over the years that looked good for a day or two, maybe a week tops. I’ll certainly have to give this a try, as I’ve had a few customers ask me what might be done about their faded frames. I had recently been telling them “not much can be done about it”. One other question for you. What does it do to the glass if it gets on it? Can it be removed with a blade? Does it etch? My reason for asking is because I have come up against windows that had the frames treated with something that was hell to get off of the windows. Could this be the culprit?

[B]THEGLASSMACHINE[/B]
[I]“because glass looks it’s best when you can’t see it”[/I]

Kris, love the videos man ! Awesome editing too :slight_smile:

Not trying to be a jerk, but I saw the pressure washing one, and I’d like to talk you out of using the turbo nozzle, you don’t need it for driveways.

interesting new add-on, I’ll pass on that one, property management firms are cheap enough to don’t clean the windows, leave alone restoring frames :slight_smile:

Thanks for watching the video. I try not to get it on the glass and I don’t remember it being a real problem yet, but that may have been because we have always been cautious when applying it to frames.

Also, when you dip your microfiber in it, you ring it out fully, because all you need is the slightest amount. Therefore, we haven’t had any dripping to contend with and it isn’t messy putting it on. But you should wear gloves, even though I didn’t in the video. That video wasn’t planned out at all, we just went with it.

Thanks for the compliment on the vids. I’m enjoying the learning process with imovie. Chris and Alex talked me into getting it. Pretty killer program.

We don’t do much driveway work, or any flat surface work for that matter, so we don’t lug around a surface cleaner. Mainly cause space is the issue.

What do you recommend for driveways? Surface cleaner? chems?