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Need Improved Slip Feel on Anodised Components

2000

Hello, I'm back again to pick your brains. Thanks for all the help on Barrel anodising, it was most useful.

My latest problem seems to be quite a common one, minimum lubricity of our anodised components.

As you may recall, we anodise for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. It is our cosmetic parts that are giving us this problem. Our customers require a good slip feel, so plastic inserts go in with a minimum force, or caps go on smoothly.

We find the problem is worse with a hot seal (currently Wirral fospray, HW4 additive). Clariant SH2 (we run at 90C)gives a slightly better feel, but still not to the standard that some customers require.

We have been trialling a cold seal(Rhodia Albriseal*30) for several reasons, firstly to speed up the sealing process (another big issue) and secondly to improve the slip feel. For speed sealing it is great, but the slip feel seems to vary (sometimes great, sometimes poor). Albriseal is a NiF seal, we run at 5g/l @ 30C.

We have also tried slip additives in rinses after sealing, so far these have been effective but cause stains or have just been ineffective.

Any help would be gratefully received, products, suppliers, necessary changes earlier on in the process! we are willing to try just about anything (within reason). Thanks in advance.

Jonathan Holgate
- Lancashire, UK

I suppose you can put a Teflon coating on after sealing to provide a better lubricity.

S. Y. Yuen
- Hong Kong, China
2000