shelf life

[cooldad New User Find all posts View Profile Close cooldad]

Hi all, I am in the process of setting up my recently purchased anodizing kit from Caswell. I am new to this but excited to see what I can get for results. As in anything somebody is doing for the first time I have about a million questions. I am finding answers for many, but some things I am a little unsure of. This seems to be a very friendly and supportive forum, which I will say as a membed of many different forums on the net it does not always work that way. So that being said I am looking forward to getting started and sharing with all of you. My real name is Dave, so hi to everyone.

My first question is about the shelf life of battery acid. We farm in Michigan, and I have a five gallon box of acid that was purchased about four years ago. It has been stored on a shelf in a cold storage part of our shop. It is in the original container and has only about one gallon taken out. If it does not degrade with time then I would like to use it up. But as inexpensive that this stuff is, if it will cause problems I will just buy some new product.

The second question today I am curios about. I have picked up a bunch of scrap pieces from a local metal shop. He gave me about four of the most common aluminums in several different shapes and sizes. I am planning to pracice alot before I try any good parts. I am wondering though when I start doing parts, how badly can I screw up a piece? Just wondering because if you cant destroy the piece completely then it would take a little pressure off. As some of the stuff I plan on doing will be high dollars to replace.

Well thats all for now, so thanks and chat to ya later.
Dave

[Fibergeek Metal Finishing Guru Find all posts View Profile Close Fibergeek]

I know from experience that battery acid has a shelf life of one year. Four years? I don't know, I'd replace it if I were you.

How badly you can screw up a piece depends on how you define screw up. I have totally wrecked a real Colt AR15 lower receiver, not by anodizing, but by stripping off the old anodize with lye. The lye enlarged the pin holes to the point the receiver was mechanically useless. Common sense would dictate that you don't attempt anodizing anything valuable until you have the processs down pat by using scrap to practice on.