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I Forge Iron

forged aluminum


Francis Trez Cole

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I have some online friends who do a lot with coloring reactive metals. It's not the same as anodizing but some techniques cross over. I'll have to ask.

Forging aluminum can be fun, it moves like butter but work hardens quickly it'll really teach you to pay attention to the material.

Frosty The Lucky.

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A friend name of John Dach posted this info.

You might suggest he contact Ron or Debbie Young at www.sculptnouveau.com or call them 1-800-728-5787, 8am-5pm PT, M-F as they have all sorts of materials for metals and coloring, - dyes, chemistries, etc. and see if they can help.  Most often I talk with Debbi and she is VERY familiar with what they have and how they might or might not work with most any ???.

John

Hope this helps. Frosty The Lucky.

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On 10 February 2016 at 2:37 AM, Francis Trez Cole said:

Frosty it was interesting the pine paint starer from the depot came in very handy yes that is the normal color. The next thing will be to set up an anodizing station. have the battery charger. just need tanks and die.  

Always good fun to explore different materials.

The starer you refer to, is that how those of us who write English (as opposed to American), would spell stirrer? :) As in your temperature tester?

When heating bigger pieces to forge hot I always draw a squiggle with a soap bar, which turns black at annealing temperature, so I could tell if it was heating up evenly, and then went on to the pine stick for the greasy/sticky/charring surface test.

When I have used hot forged Aluminium for internal architectural sized projects, I finished it by using phosphoric acid as a pickle/brightener and then Renaissance wax. External grilles were again acid brightened and had an isocyanate lacquer and then Renaissance wax.

I seem to remember we did a bit of anodising at school in the lead lined acid bath and then finished in boiling water. But there is a lot of info available as I am sure you have found...http://astro.neutral.org/anodise.shtml for instance.

Alan

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A method for testing temps that I learned from a motocross rider was to soot the part with an acetylene torch first, then kick the oxygen on and heat until the soot just burned off. At that it instant it was below the melting temp yet allowed you to bend the part without breaking it. It works pretty good.

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