What's new
What's new

Aluminum surface hardening treatment or coating.

AlexW

Plastic
Joined
May 29, 2012
Location
Montana
I am looking for a treatment or coating that can be used on aluminum to increase the surface hardness and reduce friction. The parts can not be anodized.
Thanks
 
Yes, but it really wont reduce the friction like I would like. Anodize would be ideal, but the parts have steel inserts that cant be removed
 
There are various coating methods such as vacuum evaporation and sputtering that can apply many different coatings. Look at the coatings for milling cutters, etc. Astronomical mirrors are usually glass that is aluminized, then coated with silicon monoxide. I have some thin film books I can look at.

Bill
 
Just for future consideration, to state the obvious, if you can anodize before installing inserts, that works nicely.
 
If this is a one-time thing because you installed the inserts before realizing it needed a hardening process... you CAN mask them prior to anodizing. We found ourselves in a similar boat when we didn't see the line buried in the specs regarding anodizing. We had some steel bushings pressed into some ears that had a critical in-line function and didn't want to risk pressing them out and back in.

Long story short, we found out masking works and didn't hurt the bushings. Our anodizers had some sort of goop the said they plug holes with and put some around the faces of the bushings too. Came out nicely, and the bushings checked well against a Deltronic set, to make sure they didn't grow any.
 
This caught my eye awhile ago Tuffcoat - Quality Coatings. I don't know if your steel inserts will be an issue but it may be worth a call.

Tuffcoat is hard anodize filled with Teflon, so it's not possible if you can't do anodizing. Per the description in MIL-A-63576A: "This specification covers the requirements for an electrochemical process for building a lubricative anodic coating on aluminum and aluminum alloys. The unsealed anodic coating is impregnated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or coated with a resin-bonded materials containing PTFE"
 
I am also looking for a surface hardening treatment for our aluminum welding bars. It should with stand temperatures up to 350deg and reduce also the friction. As well I am looking for a material that has a Good heat transfer and is not deforming under 350deg. I was thinking of aluminum, copper or brass aloy
 
Nikasil might have some of the proprties you are looking for, although it is quite a specialised process. Pioneered by Mahle mainly for cylinders so Aluminium pistons can run directly in Aluminium cylinders. Widely used for motorcycles.
 








 
Back
Top