Those Are Grain Boundaries—Part of the Material By Ed Rubin Have you ever experienced the appearance of “raindrops,” “snowflakes,” or galvanized metal patterns in your anodized finish? If so, don’t shoot your anodize supplier. Let me tell you why. Common metals, such as aluminum, are polycrystalline in nature. These crystals are generally referred to as grains. The grains vary in size and shape and are…
What Are the Snowflake-Like Galvanized Metal Patterns in My Anodized Aluminum?
Resource Considerations when Anodizing Aluminum
Aluminum Anodizing and Water Conservation Do Not Have to Be Incompatible In my day, in metal finishing class 101, the first thing you were taught about aluminum anodizing was this: when you think you have rinsed enough, rinse again. Clean water is your friend; use it. That was great advice when water was free, or nearly free—and it still holds true in aluminum anodizing—but increasingly…
What to Do about Stains, Scratches, and Blemishes on Anodized Aluminum
“Can You Fix This?” The real question here is: can we avoid “having to” fix this? We often get asked if we can fix problems such as stains, scratches, and blemishes on products we are anodizing. As we’ll discuss below, there are remedial steps we can take for some issues. The most effective approach, though, is to have your products anodize-ready before they even get…
10 Questions to Ask Reputable Anodizers
How Do You Chose the Right Anodize Company? Choosing any vendor, for any service, can be a challenge if it is done correctly. I posed my industries’ problem to a professional procurement VP and former metal finishing buyer. “Buying services can seem simple,” according to the VP of procurement for a major orthopedic company. “In fact, it’s often much harder than buying a tangible product.”…
Medical Anodizing Applications at the World Congress on Aluminum DCHN Presented the MICRALOX Solution
In 2011, with the patent pending technology MICRALOX®, just newly announced and as of yet unknown, I was asked to speak at the World Congress on Aluminum in Bologna, Italy. That conference so peaked my interest in this world-wide attended event that I jumped at the chance to discuss this technology when invited to speak in 2015 at the 9th World Congress on Aluminum, “Aluminum…
White Specs on Sharp Edges of Type II & III Aluminum Anodizing
What to Know About Knurls and Graining [caption id="attachment_1085" align="alignright" width="300"] Sample of white-spec and knurling problems associated with anodizing, supplied by DCHN Metal Finishing Services[/caption] You’ve made your parts and shipped them off for finishing. Seemingly an easy request. Then you get your part back from the anodizing company and you see these whitish looking specs along the edge of your part, or maybe…
Pursuing Color Match vs. Color Range when Anodizing Colors
Important Distinctions for Achieving Desired Outcomes when Color Anodizing Aluminum anodizing, whether it is type II or type III, is achieved by electro-chemical methods prescribed and designed to yield oxide coatings with certain properties. These properties can be hardness, thickness, electrical resistance, corrosion resistance, bond-ability, lubricity, and/or combinations of several of the above. One common, desirable output of aluminum anodizing is the ability to obtain…
Anodize Sealing and RoHS Compliancy Nickel Fluoride Bath Solution
The formation of the anodized coating on aluminum is characterized by a series of closely packed hexagonal columns with a cylindrical type pore in the center of each column. The significance of the pore during the anodizing process is to allow electrolyte to flow to the aluminum surface and to provide a path for ions to flow and allow the anodizing process to proceed. After…
Top 16 Questions about Masking Anodized Aluminum
Expert Answers to Masking Requirements for Anodized Aluminum Parts! There’s much to consider when designing your aluminum parts to be anodized. If your parts require it, masking can be a crucial step in the process to ensure they are finished in accordance with the engineering specifications. We sat down with Bobby Scott who joined the precursor to DCHN in 1967 to share his knowledge and…
Eliminating Grain Exposure in Aluminum Anodizing What’s Behind Coring and Alligator Skin on Anodic Coatings
“What is this? The part was processed and returned and I took one look and said, ‘How did you guys cause this issue?’” This was a question from one customer, but is voiced from time to time in the industry. His confusion at seeing product with coring returning from the anodic coating process came from not understanding that the grain boundaries on some aluminum alloys…
