cloudy sealer?

[acidrain]

I just finished a large, welded aluminum sealer tank, and after my first heating, the sealer (high temp nickel sealer) turned cloudy.
I previously used SS pots heated directly on a gas burner with no problems what so ever.
I'm wondering if the raw aluminum plate has caused the sealer to turn milky, or could it be the extruded polystyrene insulation?
The rigid pink insulation expanded a bit, which makes me believe it has given off some gasses.
The sealer still seems to work fine, but I'm not trusting it, and my instincts tell me replace it.
Anybody else have this experience?
Just to be clear, I've tried filtering it, but it's not a suspended contaminate.
For reference, you can only see through it about 1 inch, and it seems to have gotten progressively worse.

[Tim Wiltse]

As far as I know you can't use an aluminum container to use/store your sealer in.

LAter,
Tim

[acidrain]

Hmmm... first I've heard of it. Anybody else confirm that?

[Tim Wiltse]

The Caswell anodizing manual stated it. Plus I had used an aluminum pan once for my sealer and it turned cloudy much like what you are saying.

LAter,
Tim

[Tim Wiltse]

acidrain,

Go out to Caswell's main page and go to the LCD anodizing products page. On the page that lists the kits it has a link to the .pdf for the instructions for it. On page 12 it states "Do NOT use aluminum or metal container". For most of my small parts I use a crock pot.

LAter,
Tim

[kco1196]

I noticed Caswell says not to use their sealer in a metal tank too. That was right before I went out and bought a 12 quart stainless steel stock pot. But I have read elsewhere that it's okay. Since my sealer came from Caswell I'm going to stick with their recommendation.

[acidrain]

Oh, I see...
Oh well, new sealer is coming.
I'll stick with SS in the future... been using SS pots for years now with no ill effects.

[Cuda_V8]

You still can use your aluminum tank if you put some layers of fiber-glass. This works great. When I had my chrome plant and my tanks were around 4000 Lt. so i covered them with fiber-glass because coudln't find plastic tanks for that volume.

Oc.