I don't know, I just used car wax.
Maybe you can anodized a highly polished surface to make a tint protector.
Proper use of automotive clearcoat paint would probably work so long it does not diffuse. But you will need to repolish it a bunch, because spray paint will have this 'orange skin' effect.. this polishing you would do with a sequence of polishing compounds, possibly starting with a rough sand paper (but maquire makes a rough polish that claims to 'take over' after 1200 grit sand paper). I think the automotive clearcoat will give you the strongest layer, since its meant for cars that take a beating driving down a dirty windy highway at 70mph.
If you go to a autozone they will have some maquires products that have a temperature scale on the side indicating what grit they are good for. But its more complicated then that, because they have proprietary abrasives that break down into smaller ones, so over time your polishing pad will have smaller particles on it.. and there is no good data that says when you should switch to a finer compound or just keep rubbing with the compound you have, I think its a trial and error thing. Sokolov wrote about his car experiences in my thread though. For this reason I suspect they won't work on metal, so you need seperate metal polish that just has stable abrasive in it, and you need to clean the surface and change grits.
I have a thread about it in the 'other stuff' forum which is filled with ideas, and you can find ALOT about polishing softer surfaces, like plastic and clearcoat paint, on car forums and maquires web forum (which does not have so much on metal polishing).
I think the plastic clearcoat can turn yellow with UV though, which also requires sanding, and I don't know if aluminum or clearcoat will last longer, if you just leave it as aluminum you can just repolish it with the finest polish that will work, indefinatly, wheras if you repolish clear coat to get rid of the eventual UV damage, you will eventually wear it down and it will require repaint.
My idea was that for outdoor applications the car wax would form a protective layer where contaminates would accumulate on, so it would at least protect it from abrasion due to particles being blown at it in the wind and stuff.. but I have NO IDEA if it stops oxygen diffusion effectively. It makes sense to me that it would at least reduce the rate some what. You can also remove and reapply it easily and its extremely cheap, if you buy a tub, wax your car twice a year, you will have plenty left over for any kind of small jobs like window sills, non eating table tops, etc. It goes on ultra thin, just read the directions for use, you need to dry it. Given how cheap and easy it is, I don't think you can go wrong with turtlewax on most things that need to be cleaned, I just would not eat off of it.
You should use the claybar to clean stuff before polishing though, after you use a microfiber cloth, especially if its a nice surface.
Another option for outdoor and dirty use might be to use ceramic topcoats, but these have all sorts of problems like high application difficulty, I don't klow if they will work on bare metal, and they make water bead up so you get more rainspots, but they should clean alot easier. They are also really expensive. You would use them instead of wax. There is a youtube car community that is doing alot of active research on ceramic coatings at this moment, just search for ceramic coatings for a while and pay attention to your recommended videos. I never seen it used on metal, only as a coating to apply after clear coat.
They do say howver due to the water beading, the ceramic coatings will end up looking like spotty shit and can be affected by the crystal growth from water impurities, wheras wax does not care at all and looks better with less maintence. A home job of ceramic coat supposedly lasts like 2-3 years, wheras a professional one (costing thousands) will last like 7-8 years if maintained. Car wax IMO is good for like 3-6 months.. they use like heating, sensitizers, special cleaners, and all this crazy shit for ceramic coating application, the idea being that your car will look great if you just hose it down after it gets dirty, but you need to hose it down or else.
I thought they might be really interesting to use in a machine shop on machines that get dirty from water cooling... I don't know the oil resistance of the ceramic coats, but it might make machine tools not look like perpetual shit unless you have a maid crew. Like on a surface grinder, water cooled band saw, bench grinder guard etc. I find I need to soak my bench grinder guards in wd-40 to clean the muck out of them, but I wonder if a ceramic coat might make it so you can quickly wipe it down with a tarry cloth after using it. Or in a polishing area, I find that after polishing, If Idon't bring my equipment out doors (say due to rain), the entire area ends up being completely coated in difficult to remove wax/abrasive mixture that is just a pain in the dick to clean. It ends up caking on most surfaces and you need to use a brush and detergent to clean it well. Same goes for rust removal using a wheel, everything gets fucking coated. Or just generally using a grinder indoors after welding.
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