deco woes

With the completion of the area under the hood, I moved the focus to in front of the hood--- the bumper.  The bumpers have been off the car for 3 years, stashed safely in a spare bedroom.  I have now loosely fit the front bumper and done the requisite color sanding.  Photo below.  
The sanding was done with the deco and bumper guards off so I could easily reach all surface areas.  Now that the color sanding is complete, my attention moves to the deco trim- and what a mess it is!
I'm including a few shots of the deco.  Good news is that it is original, not reproduction trim.  The difference is easy to see at the ends of the trim. Notice in the photo how the ends are nicely rounded and meet evenly.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that it's been on the car for over 50 years, and has the battle scars to prove it.  Lots of nicks and scrapes, some of of which are deep.  Lots of sand blasting of the aluminum from small debris that hit the trim while driving, and it also has one nice size dent.
What to do about these deco woes?  Well, a new reproduction piece is about $200 and is easily recognizable as not original, so the other option is to try restoration.  I'm going with restoration.
First step is to remove the outer seal and the inner insert.  The inner insert is scuffed up, but the material is soft and repair should not be too difficult.  Outer seal came off in one piece, and I think just cleaning will be all that is needed.
Second step is to grab a fine tooth file and get the bad marks removed.  Since the aluminum is soft, this step went fairly quickly.  Maybe an hour spent.
Next I will need to remove the anodization.  An internet search shows several methods, and I think I will try using Easy Off Oven Cleaner.  It is much easier to chemically remove the anodization than to try and sand it all off.  When I get to that step, I'll post some photos.
After that I will try and remove the dent with blocks of wood and then finally sanding and polishing.
​Stay tuned...

Below is a photo of my filing marks.  This is the same end as shown above.  Deep scratches are gone.  This will all be wet sanded with finer and finer grades of sand paper then polished to the desired finish.