[TowerTalk] "anodized" aluminum

[Bill Coleman AA4LR]

On 8/24/97 23:32, Dennis Schaefer at w5rz@cswnet.com wrote:

>I was scraping off some silicone rubber that had been glopped all over the
>antenna and he cautioned about doing too much scraping.  He said it would
>remove the "anodizing" from the aluminum and it would turn black.  

In the aviation world, when you want to clean junk off a piece of 
aluminum without harming the softer alloys deposited on the surface of 
the aluminum sheet (a process that goes by various names), you use 
ScotchBrite(tm). Sometimes, nasty chemicals like Toluene or MEK help, but 
mostly you use some elbow grease or a drill or dremel tool with a rotary 
ScotchBrite pad.

(Some months ago spent part of an afternoon trying to remove some 50-year 
old adhesive from the wing-walk of an Ercoupe)

I don't think aluminum tubing is typically treated in this way. You 
probably don't have to worry about scraping stuff off, but you might want 
to consider that any scratches you put in the tubing form a step riser 
that could lead to stress cracks later on. 



Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not in a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901


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