N788RV

N788RV

Active Member
Has anybody looked into anodizing or have any suggestions to protect and spruce up the canopy rails and slidder. I thought anodizing might look nice but not sure how it will wear or if it is too expensive. Any ideas??
 
N788RV said:
Has anybody looked into anodizing or have any suggestions to protect and spruce up the canopy rails and slidder. I thought anodizing might look nice but not sure how it will wear or if it is too expensive. Any ideas??
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I had many of the slider canopy parts including the rails, fuselage track, handle, and doghouse anodized by the same company near St. Louis that anodizes many (now) Boeing parts. The cost was under $150 and it didn't matter if it was one part or 20 parts because the set-up cost is the same regardless. Available in many colors, the anodized finish holds up very well and is a great alternative to powdercoating. About the only tip I can give you is to make certain the parts to be anodized are blemish free because unlike the masking qualities of a paint coat, any defects in the aluminum will clearly show through anodize.

Recently, I made the mistake of sending out a pair of fuel caps to a company located near Ann Arbor, Michigan to have anodized in red before planned engraving. The company ended up stripping off the anodize at no charge to me because in their words, the result was a dirty burgundy color. Seems the fuel caps are an aluminum casting and according to them does not accept anodizing easily. I'm not certain that is entirely true and may spend a half day driving them to the same place I had the canopy parts anodized and seek a second opinion.

I mentioned this in another thread, I am convinced there is a market for custom anodized RV parts and I would think someone in the experimental community could profitably fill that niche.
 
Anodised canopy rails

I annodised my canopy rails, and many other parts,with great success.
The technique is quite simple and quick.
You need a bath large enough to take the part with about 1" of liquid all around. A piece of plastic gutter will work but heat build up is best controlled by using a bigger bath.
The acid is sulphuric (battery acid) with equal parts of water.
The cahtode is a piece of lead but you will need to use an aluminium wire to attach the part to the positive battery lead.
The inrush current is 6 amps per square foot so a standard 12 volt battery is quite sufficient. Use a charger across the battery.
The time to get a good surface to take the dye is about 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes the piece is washed in cold water then the dye is rubbed on with a rag or whatever.

The catch is that unless you have a propper anodising dye the only cheap food dye that works well is the golden colour that the main spar etc is coloured with. (found on the supermarket shelves for colouring cakes)

After the dye is applied the piece need to have boiling water over it to set the oxides and dye.

It is a very had wearing surface and despite mush dragging of boots etc over the canopy rails, they are standing up well.

Rv-6A
Flown 10 hours so far.
 
Canopy Rails

I went ahead a bit the bullet and had my -8 rails chrome plated. It wasn't cheap, but its really hard and looks r e a l l y good :D . So good, that most people don't want to even touch it to avoid fingerprints. It cost about $100 for each rail; but to me, it was worth it. A personal choice, but an option.
 
N788RV said:
Has anybody looked into anodizing or have any suggestions to protect and spruce up the canopy rails and slidder. I thought anodizing might look nice but not sure how it will wear or if it is too expensive. Any ideas??
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I am too cheap.

I purchased some of the polish wadding that the Harley drivers use on their bikes. I polished mine. Looks like chrome but only cost about $4 once 9 years ago and takes 5 minutes of my time twice a year since then. Any aluminum polish will work.

If I had it to do over again, I would polish the aluminum that sits on top of the longeron that you grab every time getting in an out of the airplane.
 
Rick6a said:
About the only tip I can give you is to make certain the parts to be anodized are blemish free because unlike the masking qualities of a paint coat, any defects in the aluminum will clearly show through anodize.
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I have to second Rick's comment. I anodized all my -8 rails as well as a number of other parts. I had previously polished the side rails and that extra effort provided a very nice base for the anodizing. The other pieces that were simply cleaned up with Scotchbrite show all kinds of hairline marks. Another trick is to ask for "hard" anodizing. After a couple of years the rear canopy slider rail doesn't show any sign of wear.
 
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Had my canopy rails and latch hard anodized. No maintenance ever and no dirty black aluminum oxide on your hands or rollers. Highly recommended.
 
rv6ejguy said:
Had my canopy rails and latch hard anodized. No maintenance ever and no dirty black aluminum oxide on your hands or rollers. Highly recommended.
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Same here, works great!! Give 'em your rudder pedals at the same time, no extra charge...$90 was the minimum lot charge (5 years ago).
 
Sounds like a good idea. How do you find someone locally that can do it? Or do you guys recommend shipping them to someone specific?
 
Any industrial size city should have a plating shop...you could inquire at your local harley dealer. If they do piecework chrome plating they probably do anodizing too.
 
I'm with Ted. Anodizing small parts is fairly straightforward and pretty cheap. If you can build an airplane, anodizing is childs play. If you search online, you'll find small kits for doing just this.

Of course, it's easier just to send them out. If you can find someone to do a whole batch for $100, and you do everything at once, you'll probably be break even at least and it's way easier. Problem is, you rarely get everything at once...there's always something you missed or want to change your mind on.

Most importantly, though, it's neat to point to something and say "I anodized it myself", and hear a bunch of burely custom bike and hotrod guys let out a collective, "Ewhhhhhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhh."
 
I did not anodise any parts on my RV as I don't like the way that some of the colored parts fade. I didn't like the flashy look of chrome, so I found the best alternative was electroless nickel plating. When polished it looks like chrome but with a slightly golden, rather than blue, tinge. However, I chose a satin finish for my canopy rails, slider latch, rudder pedals and flap tubing. It isn't porous like chrome, much harder wearing and scratch resistant and doesn't introduce hydrogen embrittlement.

Martin in Oz
 
The typical colored anodize is what they call Type II and the color is not much more than an organic dye. Indeed, it fades in sunlight, just look at any boat. I would suggest Type III hard anodize, not only is it a bit tougher, but the light gray/pewter hue it has doesnt fad as bad. Also, as pointed out, the finish of the material will dictate to a large degree how nice the finish looks. The ultimate in shine is from polishing first, then anodizing. Personaly, for a part that is going to see some abuse (sliders, etc) I would put an even "grain" on it with 400 grit sand paper or a scotchbrite pad, and let the anodize have a slightly textured, dull sheen. Alot of abuse and weathering wont change its looks as much as a polished one will, which tend to magnifiy blemishes.
 
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