Getting anything to stick to aluminum long-term can be a bit of a chore.  I held off posting because I have only limited experience.  I used to have West System instructions that suggested sanding the wet epoxy into the aluminum (thus the epoxy can bind to fresh aluminum before a new oxide layer forms).  I've done some tests of this and it seems to work well.  Otherwise you need to use something like alodine to prep the aluminum.  If you don't remove the aluminum oxide before you start applying anything (with the exception of sanding wet epoxy) you are going to have trouble with paint peeling and bubbling off the aluminum.

It might we worth trying to sand/smooth one end of the tube as an experiment.  You might not have to remove much material to smooth the mast out.  Sanding and polishing the aluminum would likely be about as much work as painting, but would be longer lasting.

My $0.02

Darren

The light poles are "spun" when manufactured. I am not sure if the surface is a result of that or not. It is quite abrasive to the touch, perpendicular to the length of the pole there are light consistent depth tooling marks for the length of the pole. I think it would take a considerable amount of painting to end up with a smooth surface. I talked with my epoxy manufacturer and he assured me the epoxy will adhere to this "toothed" surface very well so I will do a test area soon with thickened epoxy.

The light poles I recently picked up for my conversion have a brushed abrasive surface that would cause chafe. Does anyone have experience smoothing this out? I don't want to remove any material, so I guess my best option is fairing it with thickened epoxy and several coats of epoxy paint. Has anyone used thickened epoxy to fair the surface of their aluminum pole? Thank you.