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  for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Can our aluminum fishing reels be titanium coated?

Do you know of a way to titanium coat a Aluminum body . We are a high end fishing reel manufacturer and are looking at some new ideas for 2004 . We have thought of completely constructing a reel frame and sideplate , spool out of Titanium but because of costs ,we are looking at other alternatives at this time . My question is can you coat an aluminum body with titanium , will it stand up to corrosion and what kind of material build - up will there be . Our reels are manufactured to tight tolerances, so the amount of material build-up is important.

GEORGE CARDENAS
PRODUCTION MANAGER - ONTARIO, California, USA
2003

Have no input, only interest in trying/buying one of those reels. Have you looked into Teflon coated reels? :-) What type reel is it?

Doug Corbett
- Salt Lake City, USA
2003

You may want to consider an extremely smooth, very hard, corrosion resistant Amorphous Diamond Like Carbon (ADLC) coating. These are very shiny and are generally some shade of black / anthracite depending on the coating. Typical current uses are in automotive and machine component applications where they provide low friction and prevent wear and corrosion.

Jeff Ostman
Coating Services / Equipment - Olten, Switzerland
2003

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There was a technique for covering copper anode bars in plating tanks with Titanium. This was done by swaging titanium tubing over copper rod, under extremely close tolerances. If you did this with Titanium over Aluminum, you would need a healthy bit of research to see how to further machine the aluminum and shape it to the desired configuration. This probably would not be practical. Have you considered modifying the drawings for these parts and then plating them with High Phosphorus Electroless Nickel? The modification would be to allow room for a 1 mil coating thickness of Electroless Nickel. As a weekend fisherman, I often wondered why Electroless Nickel wasn't used on more fishing reels. Obviously there will be cost considerations, and that is enough to stop many manufacturers from attempting this. I would suggest part evaluations with salt water and fresh water to see if this might hold an interest for you. High Phosphorus Electroless Nickel in >1 mil thicknesses is a very corrosion resistant coating.

Ed Budman [dec]
- Pennsylvania
With deep sadness we advise that our good friend Ed passed away Nov. 24, 2018
2004