Best way to remove salt/aluminium corrosion

[rwoofer]

Just upgraded my sailing dinghy to get better performance and wondering what are the best ways of removing both hard dried in salt deposits and aluminium corrosion, in situ. At the moment I'm inclined to use hot water and a tooth brush for the salt. But don't really know what to do with the aluminium corrosion.

Any thoughts on better approaches?

Thanks

 

[rob2]

There's not really a lot you can do about aluminium corrosion except scrub the worst off with hot water! Even if you polish the pitted areas they will corrode again unless re-anodised. There is a paint on anodising which is used in avionics, "Alichrome" I believe. Not all that hard wearing though.

Rob.

 

[VicS]

Salt is soluble so warm water should remove it without difficulty.

The aluminium oxide resulting from corrosion of aluminium is best removed by grit blasting with a soft grit.

A had some port holes done for a friend so years ago by our paint testing lab but I don't recall exactly what grit was used. They also etch primed them and supplied some chlorinated rubber paint to finish them.

 

[tross]

I have been doing some investigation on the corrosion of ali on the internet for repainting the outboard and I keep coming across the recommendation of using phosphoric acid to clean off the corrosion. I started looking around for a supplier and some one recommended cola - in fact they said diet cola as that has more in it!

I am about to try it and I will let you know

 

[elton]

Fine wet-and-dry to remove the heaviest corrosion, then Solvol Autosol to polish it. Solvol Autosol can give aluminium a mirror finish.