Painting aluminium checker plate

Remember....preparation will save you in the end, any impurities will cause paint to flake or flare.

Use an Alkaline cleaner (Edit-I use a product called Alkasteam and have used one called Rip off but most oven cleaners are Alkaline) first as this will remove any corrosion and/or anodisation from the alloy.

It will though stain it black if you leave it on for too long.

It will bubble up like baking soda on a battery terminal and then wash off with lots of fresh water then use heaps of wax and grease remover before priming with the stuff previously mentioned (which is just an etch primer) but only use a light coat and only 1 coat of primer.

You can then use several coats of top coat but do it as mentioned before in heaps of light coats from different directions allowing to dry in between as it ends up looking crap if you get build up on 1 side of the checkers.

Ive done it heaps of times this way and it always came up good.

But what is better and sometimes cheaper and deffinatly less time consuming is just send it to the powder coaters :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rick130

oooh, that's a bit of a generalisation for you John :o

Some of the high tensile grades, depending on the metallurgy aren't very corrosion resistant at all, hence why the 12'x 4' sheet of 2024 T4 I have sitting in my shed is Alclad (anodised) :p

OK, OK, common old checker plate (chequer ?) is plain Jane dead soft relatively pure but I couldn't resist :D

---

i'll bet it's 't3', and not anodised, just 'clad.

pedro, why do you want to paint it and what is it you want to paint?
most of the real preparations involve an acid [not alkali] process to clean the metal, but this does have the risk of seeping under the chequerplate where it may be rivetted to something. it is better to remove the ally bit and treat and reprotect then paint and refit.
however an acid treatment may be better [than painting] then just polish it back up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by harry

i'll bet it's 't3', and not anodised, just 'clad.

---

I'm going off memory as the texta wore off a few years back but did think it was T4, and yes it's definitely 'clad only (and a peel off plastic)

would like to paint the camper---
so taking it apart it a no-go
but it all seems a bit difficult,,

was just going to use this
::: White Knight Paints
and then spray over the top---

a dilute phosphoric acid wash to get rid of the oxidation (rust converter is ideal) then the the etch primer, etc.
Phosphoric acid cleans up aluminium beautifully. It's used in industry all the time.

Thanks EVERYONE:D

Rick,, where would I get hold of a couple of litres of THAT---

and the MSDS sheets to go with it---:p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Note: Alclad is not the same as anodised, although alclad may be anodised as well. Alclad is the proprietary name for corrodible aluminium alloy coated with a thin layer of pure aluminium. Anodising is the process of forming a hard, durable layer of aluminium oxide electrochemically to protect aluminium. It is much thicker and more cohesive than the layer that forms naturally when aluminium is exposed to air, which normally prevents further oxidation, but the anodised layer, being thicker, is less easily damaged.

John

---

Your reply beat me to the draw, John. You are correct. Alclad was the term used for duralium with a thin layer of aluminium each side for the purpose of preventing/delaying corrosion. Came out of the WWII aircraft programmes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Thanks EVERYONE:D

Rick,, where would I get hold of a couple of litres of THAT---

and the MSDS sheets to go with it---:p

---

rust converter Pedro ;)
Any automotive paint shop will have it.