Painting aluminum?

[Dminor]

Hey guys,

had a question that I couldn't find listed in any other posts. I'm curious as to how easy it would be paint machined aluminum?

I purchased all my MHS parts as well as some of the black rubber rings, but didn't like the texture it gave my saber when I held it, so I thought I might paint the ridges in the pommel black instead.

Has anyone done this? Were you successful? What steps did you take to ensure the paint would adhere to the aluminum?

Thanks in advance!

[987654321a]

tape off the places you dont want painted. get an airbrush, or a spray can of krylon in whatever color you wish you have. and just spray over that area, for the airbrush use acrylic paint it is easy to get on and doesnt ruin your airbrush. after you are done clear coat it with a clear coat spray can bought from home depot or lowes, or perhaps michaels.

[Lord Maul]

i'm getting mine powdercoated.

it is THE most durable paint out there, and durable is what i want

[Dminor]

thanks for the info, but I find it hard to believe that you don't have to prep the surface with anything, at the minimum some sort of degreaser or something.

Am i correct or can you really just spray it?

[Steeljack]

thanks for the info, but I find it hard to believe that you don't have to prep the surface with anything, at the minimum some sort of degreaser or something.

Am i correct or can you really just spray it?

You're correct. Preparation is key.

Most preparation boils down to two things: giving the surface a texture that paint has the best odds of binding to, and cleaning off any oils that might interfere with adhesion.

Texture is basically a question of sanding. As with a lot of glues, a smooth, shiny surface is not what you want. A little roughing-up helps things. Sandpaper in the 320-400 grit range is probably a good choice for something lke this. I like 3M Wet-Or-Dry, used wet and with a drop of dishwashing detergent -- this helps keep the surface of the sandpaper from getting clogged with removed material.

Since you're trying to get down into the grooves of the MHS grip, you might want to wrap your sandpaper around an appropriate shape (like the square edge of a piece of cut wood) to make sure you can reach everywhere you need to. Another possible approach would be to use a stiff metal-bristled brush. Steel should work. I'm not sure about brass.

After you've sanded the surfaces to be painted, you need to clean them. A full-bore degreaser is probably overkill. (That stuff is nasty.) Warm water, some dishwashing detergent, and a toothbrush should be plenty. Alternately, a little rubbing alcohol will also do. Let the piece dry, and then proceed to masking.

Here's where it gets a bit tricky. You want to mask off the outer sections of the hilt, but you want to do it without getting skin oils all over the piece you just cleaned. I'd advise picking up a box of disposable vinyl or, even better, nitrile gloves from your local hardware store, and wearing them while you're masking so that you don't re-contaminate your work.

Keeping the gloves around for when you spray isn't a bad idea, either. While you should definitely fashion something with which to hold your piece -- for a cylindrical object like this, a dowel wrapped with a few turns of duct tape to give it the right girth works well -- oversprays happen. Wearing a glove on the hand that's holding the dowel can spare you from having to rub your skin raw with pumice soap later.

[Steeljack]

for the airbrush use acrylic paint it is easy to get on and doesnt ruin your airbrush.

To be fair, quite a few airbrushes can tolerate enamels and even lacquers. It all depends on the material used for the needle bearing and other seals. Badgers have used Teflon bearings since at least the 1980s; Iwata's Eclipse series, and more recently their HP series, have followed suit. (I suspect that Paasche likewise makes a number of models capable of tolerating organic solvents, but have no first-hand experience with them.)

[Steeljack]

i'm getting mine powdercoated.

it is THE most durable paint out there, and durable is what i want

Powdercoat is tough stuff, all right, but having watched a demonstration of the process at the Maker Faire, I'm not sure how you'd go about masking it off, as Dminor wants to do for his grip ridges. You'd need a tape or equivalent material that could withstand the temperatures inside a powdercoating oven without turning into a molten mess or catching fire. That's not an impossible order, I suppose, but it could be a tall one.

Another fun thing you can do to aluminum, and which I also saw demonstrated at the Maker Faire, is hard-anodizing. Of course, that's a laborious process involving four variably-unpleasant chemicals and some finicky electrolytics, one that probably borders on impossible to mask -- but it does leave you with a surface hardness somewhere around 9.0 on the Mohs scale, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[Dminor]

Thanks for the info!! Definitely got a better idea of how to approach it now.

Thanks everybody!

[Firebird21]

I wouldn't use a steel wire brush on aluminum. The brush will leave trace amounts of steel on the aluminum and over time it will react with the aluminum, then corrode and create pits and bumps in the hilt and paint.


You may want to read this Topic...
The Basics of Painting

As for the masking in Powder Coating, there is tape designed for this application. When mine was done the guy took the tape off before putting it in the oven... Another option is to remove the unwanted coating afterwards depending on what you want painted...


Here's a pic of what I had Powder Coated. Even though most people here have already seen it... lol

[Barmic Rin]

Here's the trick.

I want the outer rings of my grip powder-coated with a grey-blue, & keep the inner rings with the aluminium finish.
What's the name of the tape i'd need FB? Any idea?