January 9, 2008

I finally got some time tonight to do the surface treatment to these rudder hinges. I had a little assembly line set up for the different steps. I went through the whole process with one of the "practice" parts just to see what I was in for, then did the two real parts. I used a couple bottles that a friend gave me of PPG DX503 and DX553. It's the same thing as metal prep (phosphoric acid cleaner) and alodine.

The first step was to use acetone to clean off the surface of the metal. Get all of the writing off, dirt, grime, skin oil. Gloves, you have to wear gloves through this whole process. I also did all of this outside so there was good ventilation. I rinsed that off and then gave it a bath in the metal cleaner acid solution, diluted per the instructions. Three minutes with some jostling around here and there. Rinsed that off. Here's where you check to make sure the water sheets right off the metal and no beads show up. Then three minutes in the alodine solution with some more jostling. Rinse that off and hang it up to dry. The practice piece went well so I did the two rudder hinges right afterwards. Here they are hung up to dry. I'm going to let these dry fully and wait at least 24 hours to let the alodine harden before I press the bushings in.

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