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Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

(OP)
Hello all,

I recently got a part in from a reputable machine shop my company does a lot of business with. They had sent out a part to be anodized and the finish looks pretty awful. The shop owner called me up to tell me that it wasn't really anyone's fault (but mine, I suppose) because the part, which was only out for modification, had been anodized once previously (when it was made) so the second layer didn't turn out well.

I'm having a tough time buying that. We've had parts twice-anodized before and they looked fine; it looks to me like the anodizers cut corners.

See photo: What do you think?

RE: Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

It looks like the anodizer's cleaning step of the process was faulty as it did not remove finger prints. You could have them strip and re-anodize. And not handle the parts with bare fingers!

RE: Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

Get out your Jr. detective kit, and go take fingerprints of the employees at the different vendors.

Seriously, that fingerprint mark is evidence of poor cleaning and/or poor handling at some stage of the anodizing process.

RE: Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

Amen.

Pure sloppy work in the cleaning.   

Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.
www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.    

RE: Anodized finish is bad... unavoidable or result of shortcut?

But was the fingerprint really from the second vendor and not the first?  And was it really just a recent fingerprint, as opposed to one that had sat there for a while, letting the acids in the residue to slightly etch into the surface?

TTFN
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