Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Congratulations waross on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Etching of Ti6AL4V prior to Ti- Anodize

Thread starter UCengno1
Start date Jan 25, 2020

Status: Not open for further replies.

Jan 25, 2020

UCengno1

Mechanical

Ran across an issue recently where we are losing much more material than anticipated during the etch process prior to Ti Anodize. It is a cylindrical shaft that is approx. 1.5 inches in diameter and the supplier identifies that will lose as much as .0001" per side during etch. This sounds excessive per other information searches but it certainly indicates that the part is sitting in the bath for quite a while.

Admittedly not a plating expert but is the etch supposed to serve some other purpose beside cleaning for the Ti6AL4V base component? Does the .0001" removal sound normal for the prep for the Ti Anodize process?

Thanks.

Brian