I'm lucky because the area to be repaired is quite small. During the sanding and polishing, the surface will turn quite dark with the aluminum that is being removed, and you will need to keep working it with a clean cloth or tissue to get back to a clean aluminum finish. Preparation is everything of course and I was surprised at how much material 3000 grit paper will remove. It is important to get the new polished surface really clean, as the Birchwood-Casey Aluma Black will react with surface debris (I could clearly see this adjacent to my clean test area, where the compound had reacted with small traces of the polishing paste and fine aluminum powder, bubbling and changing color to a brown color). Others have suggested rubbing alcohol at this stage and that may also work or work better. I bought a bottle of the Birchwood-Casey Aluma Black (nasty stuff, so be careful) and did a test of a sheet of aluminum, first preparing it with 3000 grit paper, then polishing with Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish, then wiping the surface clean with a wet tissue. The damage is not so bad but it has smooshed the corner a little and grazed the finish and the underlying aluminum, so it will need to be sanded down and refinished, and that will expose the silver aluminum under the original dark anodized finish of course.
I damaged the corner of my Space Gray iPad Pro and would really like to make it less obvious. This is an old post now but as I was still searching for ideas on this, I am sure others will be too and maybe the following might help. So it is more permanent.īut I have never tried it on an Apple Watch, so I can't speak for the results. The advantage of Aluma Bllack over paint is that it is a chemical that, when in contact with aluminum (not oxidized aluminum) will cause a chemical reaction that turns the surface of the aluminum black. But with a watch, especially depending on where the scratches are, you would have to watch excess liquid. That said, being a rather thin liquid, you would also have to use an abundance of caution to watch where it goes. When I used it to blacken scratches in anodized black aluminum motorcycle panniers, it took me 4 or 5 applications to match the black. First applications will achieve shades of gray. Despite "Black" in the name, it actually takes a few applications to achieve black. I know you are asking about the Silver Aluminum and KarimLeVallois answer is probably as good a bet as any.īut something worth trying on the Space Gray models is Birchwood-Casey Aluma Black.