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Galvanizing half a built up letter

2004

We are a Sign Manufacturing company looking to organize an exhibition of all types of processes, finishes and products that are achievable within the sign industry. Part of the project involves galvanizing and what we would like to do is hand build the letter Z in mild steel and then have the lower half galvanized leaving the top half natural. Can this be done easily by hand or is there some special paint or other protective media that can be applied to the upper half to prevent it being galvanized, which could then be easily cleaned off afterwards. The line between the galvanized and the non-galvanized finishes needs to be as sharp and clean as possible.

Can anyone please help with pointing us in the right direction.

Thank-you.

Bill Black
Sub-Contractor controller - Exeter, Devon, England

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Normally in galvanizing this is not commercially sensible, but for the purposes of a display like this could be hand done. Masking is generally useless. There are proprietary brands of masking system, we have yet to find a reliable one in 26 years. A reasonably neat line can be made of the galv/ungalv boundary by hand dipping. The material non-galvanized will be rusty as it previously would have been chemically cleaned (acid pickled), and will rust very quickly. If it's kept dry it will not bee too bad, but will be red rusty.

Geoff Crowley
Crithwood Ltd.
Westfield, Scotland, UK

2004