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Clearcoating BARE aluminum, prep process?

Hi, my name is Tonia and I've been a heavy collision painter for close to 15 years and I have never run into the situation that I'm about to describe in the following problem that I have right now. I need to prep and clear coat some airboat rudders, and my customer wants them painted on one side (which I have no problems doing) but the other side I need to do custom artwork leaving the outside edges looking like the bare aluminum. My plan was to go ahead and do the regular paint work on the one side since that will be regular automotive paint anyway and then just clear the other side, then sand the "bare" side and do my artwork and then clear them again... my problem is I'm not sure what products to use on the bare aluminum that allows me to leave them bright without sanding them and using an aluminum cleaner/conditioner process and then epoxy primer system... anybody have any ideas? I'm used to using PPG paint so that is the preferred paint system, but will work with whatever I have to in order to make this work.

Tonia Suarez
Painter - Lake Wales, Florida
November 4, 2009

I've ran into same problem on a pontoon boat. Has anyone solved this problem.

Dennis Lee
- Linden
November 7, 2009

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Tonia!
Try 1 gm tannic acid ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] / 1 lit water pretreatment (min 30 seconds contact between solution and object,pH of solution must be corrected to 4/With diluted NaOH solution or diluted phosphoric acid/)+clearcoat it with 10% Paraloid B 44 acryl resin solution (used in conservation of metals- Talas is one of USA sellers) in toluene.Try it on some aluminum scrap ! Hope it helps and good luck!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
November 10, 2009