Angier -

I brought my control pushrods to a bicycle factory which does powder coating,
and had them powder coated with white epoxy powder coat.  Note that you don't
have to find a bicycle factory (we had a small one in Lompoc CA which made
specialty bikes) since you can find powder coating places in the yellow pages.

I measured the before-and-after weights and while I don't have the number
handy (it may be in my notebook at home) I recall a phenominally low added
weight -- something like 2 grams on the flap pushrods, which are about a
foot-and-a-half long and 3/4 inch diameter (or something close to that).

Before I started making pushrods, I dropped off the aluminum tubing at a
professional alodining place and had them alodined for corrosion protection.  
This is probably not necessary except for us anal-retentive types.... (The
formal name is MIL-C-5541C Chromium Conversion Coating.)  When I had them
powder coated, I requested that they NOT sandblast them first.  (Sandblasting
is a standard practice prior to powder coating.)  I requested they
solvent-clean them only.  I would also wrap masking tape around the part that
you don't want coated, like the threads on the rod ends.  They will have to
replace this tape with high-temp aluminum tape, since they bake the stuff
after spraying on the coating.

A simpler approach to all this is the standard yellow-green zinc chromate
primer.

- Rob Wolf