Aluminum on CorTen 2

[AustroTom]

Hello All,
New to your forum and am glad to have found you!
We are an artistic Metal business and a client of ours would like us to fabricate some business signs where we would apply forged aluminum letters to a CorTen sheet.
My question is if Aluminum (painted, anodized or plain) would affect the CorTen's corrosion behavior and or visa versa?
Also: could numbers and letters in form of printed stickers be applied to CorTen before, during or after it's corrosion process without the signage peeling off over time?

Thank you for any relies,
Thomas

 

[CoryPad]

Weathering steel, like CorTen, will cause galvanic corrosion when coupled with aluminium. Surface treating the aluminium (organic coatings, anodizing, etc.) may help but many factors involved. I see no hope for your stickers idea.

 

[AustroTom]

Thank you CoryPad,
I was afraid of that, albeit somewhat expected

 

[StoneCold]

Shipping containers are made of CorTen.
They are just painted before the lettering is applied.
A quality primer and paint on the CorTen would let you do whatever you wanted with the Aluminum.

Regards
StoneCold

 

[CoryPad]

If you are going to paint, why use CorTen instead of bare steel or galvanized steel or aluminized steel? If painting the CorTen steel (before it develops its corrosion products) is an option, then that can help with reducing galvanic corrosion on the aluminium and help with adhesion of stickers.

 

[AustroTom]

Thank you all.
Of course we would have NOT painted the CorTen part of the project as this is the desired contrast to the either brushed or painted aluminum lettering.
But if the printed letters - the company name would be stand off aluminum and the address and phone numbers stickers - won't adhere than the whole idea of CorTen is off and we will go with all aluminum anyway

 

[jwhit]

How about using brushed stainless letters instead of aluminum? That should eliminate the galvanic corrosion, but generate a similar appearance, Not sure about the difference in cost.

 

[Tmoose]

Getting Corten to weather as intended is not automatic. I believe it needs multiple full wetting cycles, each followed by the proper drying cycle.

 

[MintJulep]

Seems like it's done.

 

[Tmoose]

I wonder what the sidewalk below those handsome Cor-ten signs looks like. I'm guessing it has rust stains.
At least that is common for Cor-ten structures from the 70s.

http://roadsrus.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/img_11461.jpg

The Cor-ten Kettering University Bell Tower in Flint Michigan was structurally petty complete when I showed up in the Fall of 1968. They called it a carillon back then.