How to referbish old gold anodised spars

JerryHawkins

JerryHawkins

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My 25 year old ketch has gold anodised spars that are looking decidedly the worse for wear. They are structuraly sound (recent survey) but the gold anodising has faded in a very patchy way. Does anyone have suggestions for making them look better? I could paint them, but painting aluminium brings its own problems of corrosion unless the preparation and paint job is perfect (and so expensive)! I could sand them to remove the anodising. making them a silver colour. The bare aluminium will oxidise almost immediately giving some protection, but will this be enough?

Any ideas or other thoughts or comments would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Jerry
 
I suspect that the only way would be to remove all the fittings and get them re-anodised, but that would probably cost far too much.
There is/ was a product called Aluchrome or something similar that was used in the aerospace industry and might be the answer if you can locate it. I only know about it because I remember an old sailing friend doing his un-anodised mast with it many years ago. He was a design engineer for British Aerospace.
 
Re: How to refurbish old gold anodised spars

I'd suggest not going too crazy about them, but a good clean with teepol and water (no abrasives) followed by a thorough coating of silicon-based car polish would be the most sensible way of treating them.
This will go some way towards improving the cosmetic appearance.

The alternative is to use Hammerite - but I'd prefer the look of worn anodising
 
Re: How to refurbish old gold anodised spars

We used gold hammerite, on the mast and boom. it looked good and stayed on - I'd been afraid that it wouldn't last on top of the anodising and aluminium. But (ain't there always!) after four years, it has now turned silver/grey in colour. I couldn't be arsed to re-coat them, so put my efforts instead, into convincing the mrs. that we prefer them silver to gold.
 
Rubbing it back to bare aluminimum is one solution. Not very pretty, but if its anything like mine, it wouldnt be any worse! I once had a boat with a plain ally mast, which lasted quite well, but the ally oxide that formed on the exterior was very heavy on halyards if they were left slapping the mast! It is after all the same stuff as is used in certain types of sandpaper... It was also not very pleasant to handle, but the mast seemed to be lasting well enough when I finally sold the boat on.

Generally speaking once you paint a metal mast you are committed to a regular repaint job and they can look decidedly tatty very much more quickly than their wooden counterparts.
 
um, anodising is relatively cheap, really. And it is a superb finsih. In relevant area I found

http://www.eicgroup.co.uk/swmf_services.htm

but whoever is used the item will need to be totally stripped of bits and bobs - just a lump of ally.

The other question is how big the boom is and how big their equipment/baths so measure the boom and ringem first.

Anodising is all a bit manual with putting things in acid baths taking them out and pocing about like plating, so you'e a real customer, cept just a one-off.
 
Have you tried ringing the Spar manufacturer?
If you don't know their name, try Sailspar who supplied my
gold anodised mast many years ago.
I'd be interested to hear what they advise!
 
Thanks for your input...

I'm waiting for a reply from "RBM Anodising" who have a 12m tank which should take my mast. Not sure if re-anodising is more difficult than starting with bare ally. I'll report back on costs when I hear!

If all else fails, I may try a small area with smooth hammerite just to see how it goes on, looks and lasts.

Cheers,

Jerry
 
Re: Thanks for your input...

When I looked into re-anodising on my last boat (Southampton Anodising from memory) I found the cost was reasonable but the killer was transport. And of course every stainless fitting had to be removed.

So instead I removed it myslef. Cannot recommend this approach - its dangerous, but this is what I did.

I stripped the mast and then washed down the outside with hot caustic soda solution and a scotchbrite pad. Had tpo wear lots of protective kit inc face mask, plastic oilies, goggles hat etc (100% covered) since hot caustic is an effective way of dissolving and disposing of a body.

The remaining black dye ( because black and gold anodised masts simply have a colour compound in their anodising) came off with the surface of the aly.

Following that treatment and lots of washing, I primed with a special primer from that Epiphanes, and then sprayed with 2 coats of epoxy undercoat and 2 of poly top coat. The painting worked brilliantly, but unlike anodising it is a surface you need to touch up.

Faced with the job again, I would simply abrade the surface and then prime. I removed the black anodising because \I thought that it would show through where the paint chipped. In 5 years, the paint didnt chip - tough as old boots. I used industrial epoxy etc of the sort they sell for painting bridges. Wouldnt dream of using paints like Hammerite for such a task - can you imagine what it would look like.

And one unexpected by product - you wouldnt believe how easy it made raising the sails.
 
Re: Thanks for your input...

Folks you'll have to forgive if what I'm about say is b*****t because I'm dragging it from my memory banks when I was a green 'prentice (36 years ago).
Firstly - gold anodising is only ordinary anodise dipped in a weak solution of chromic acid - It works the same for Cad plate - the chromic bit just makes the surface a little harder.
As for getting the old anodising off - if you find an electo plater than can "anodise" your size of mast in his bath then he can strip the old off as well - it simply means he reverses the +pos -neg in the bath.
BUT beware that the stripping process is leathal to any exposed ali and will attack it v.quickly. However the plater should be able to advise you on any risks.

Hope this helps /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Peter.
 
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