Aluminium - advice needed

I doubt if the grade will make a scrap of difference to your application. The most common forged aluminium is HE30 which will be fine.

Send it to a company that does anodising?

But only if it can be anodised. :-) The AlSi0.5 is the common one, but soft like gum and not much fun to work with.

Nick

Not sure what alloy you are referring to but normal HE30 anodises fine and machines cleanly.

As Dave said HE30 (also known as 6082) or HE20 (6061) are good tough general purpose grades, and will both machine and anodise beautifully.

HE15 (2000 series) anodises like crap but machines OK. If you are planning on doing any machining to the plate, try to avoid using a

1050 aluminium.

I had to bend and machine some parts from this grade recently, and whilst it bends very nicely as it's nearly pure aluminium, the machining characteristics are somewhat akin to a wet aubergine.

Peter

Thanks Dave, HE30 it is. I'll just be milling some grooves in it so I assume T6 will be OK. Is there anywhere which describes the properties of the different grades and tempers? Unfortunately I'm starting from zero knowledge - whatever I learned about this in school tech during the late 60s has long since dissipated.

Ref the anodising - I was hoping someone would describe a DIY method (maybe the word "easiest" was inappropriate ;-) ) I've just found

which seems to have some good info.

Dave

found

seems to have some good info.

This site gives some good info on the various tempers etc which are available

That said, the best guide I've read to materials selection is a book called "Engineer to Win" by a chap called Carroll Smith. He wrote a series of books, all on the subject of racing car engineering, but this particular volume contains lots on materials (but in a common sense form, without too much heavy chemistry etc). Your local library may be able to order a copy for you or, if you email me with contact details ( snipped-for-privacy@cf.ac.uk) I'll send you a photocopy of the relevant chapter. It covers all the various aluminium grades and what they're good for. The steel info is less useful, being in american specs, but a bit of digging will usually reveal an equivalent UK material.

With regards the anodising, just give an anodising company local to you a call - we've had stuff done by a company in Treorchy for next to nothing, but I doubt they'd get involved in mail-order anodising.

Hope this helps

Alastair

There used to be a super publication of which I have a copy from The Aluminuim Federation (AlFed). It was free on request at the time (late

70's) and gives mechanical, chemical and application information on all commercial aluminium grades.

Try Google>Dave Baker wrote:

Dave

If you send me your e-mail address via the PM system, I'll send yo copies of a couple of articles about home anodising that I copied fro somewhere (now forgotten) and are filed in my ever expanding futur projects folder!

Joh

-- jlh4

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this thread:

Thanks John, I've just registered on RC groups especially to send you a PM

Dave

I find machining wet aubergines is a lot easier if you use paraffin or WD 40

Regards, Tony

Unfortunately it seems from their website that they are now more interested in making money than providing information.

However, there's some good info here:

Dave

Aah, that was my problem then. I was using garlic-infused olive oil

Peter

Philistine.......................

.

Dave , Try this website ,this guy amkes parts for telescopes and cameras ,does his own anodising. I haven't tried his methods as yet but have had the website bookmarked for longer than I can remember.

Fascinating! Thanks for the link.

D

The AlSi0.5 is Al with 0.5% Si*). Common alloy for drawn tubes and sheet metal. Welds nice, easy to anodize (we call it eloxal-quality; that includes a certain surface finish) but no fun to mill or turn. The more alloy-elements, the harder to anodize. Pb for example is a show-stopper.

*) We call this/these alloy(s) "schmieruminium" (smearuminium in English).

Nick