Discussion Model Submarine hardware

[jaguar75]

They have triple-plated-epoxy-coated super magnets.
They recommend keeping the magnets a couple of thousanths of an inch clearance from each other to keep the surfaces from wearing off.

[kazzer]

Originally Posted by jaguar75

They have triple-plated-epoxy-coated super magnets.
They recommend keeping the magnets a couple of thousanths of an inch clearance from each other to keep the surfaces from wearing off.

WOW! Triple plated eh? At the risk of another lambasting from our newly established esteemed experts here in anodising and plating, I have to ask ' Three Times Plated with what?'. Most people have no idea what a 'Triple Plate' is. It infers three coats of a plate (extra thick) but it actually is a copper, nickel, chrome plate. I am perplexed as to why anyone selling magnets would go to such extreme lengths, and then coat it with epoxy.

I must also ask, what relevance this has on magnets used for connecting push rods? Is it hype! But then, some folks here like to discuss how many angels can dance on a pin-head, and if I said black was white, they would argue the point.

Look! It's very simple, use nickel plated earth magnets, make your own encapsulated in Playdoh or whatever. buy Merriman's Kli-cons ready made, or just simply fix them to a push-rod with heat shrink tubing. I really don't care, but don't over engineer this horses doofers - please!

Oh! Yes, and lets not forget, the 10 or 200 times you are going to rub those magnets together with your push-pull action is going to wear through a nickel or exotic Triple Plate? In your dreams pal! And even if it did, what happens? A wee wee bit of RUST! Arghhhh!!!!!! It's Davy Jones locker for your sardine can!

Originally Posted by expfcwintergreen

.......... in Super Sculpy which I got from Michaels arts/crafts.

I almost forgot! You'll never see Merriman or me shopping in Michaels! We don't want artificial flowers on our boats!

[Bill Harris]

Haven't done it for subs, yet, but for oddball R&D parts I've used Small Parts Inc

http://www.smallparts.com/

--Bill

[jaguar75]

Some magnets such as Strontium-Ferrite (SrFe) and Barium-Ferrite(BaFe) are very resistive to corrosion as they are ceramics. They are often used in refrigerator magnets, car speakers, and other systems that require high corrosion resistance. Even strong acids will have not effect on their magnetic properties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barium_ferr…

Neodymium magnets (NdFeB) are another matter, once you get through the protective coating (usually nickel electro plating), they will rust rather quickly, and can be completely dissolved in acid so that they are no longer magnetic. But they are dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NdFeB

AlNiCo magnets are another you may find - but relatively expensive. The can be corroded with acid, but are more resistance the NIB magnets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlNiCo


Magnets are prone to rust because of the elements,magnetic charge and moisture.
Any form of coating is going to prolong the condition of the magnets.
Not splitting hairs here , just talking from experience in using magnets for over 40 years in fabrication and using tools with magnets.
I'm not selling anything on this forum or have any vested interset in magnet stock.So what is your point in lambasting someone who is going to be a potential customer ?

[kazzer]

Originally Posted by jaguar75

I'm not selling anything on this forum or have any vested interset in magnet stock.So what is your point in lambasting someone who is going to be a potential customer ?

Wasn't aimed at you - the targeted will soon show their faces!

[expfcwintergreen]

oopsie...

[expfcwintergreen]

Thanks for the link Bill. Let's try and keep this on target guys. This list could be good not only for the new guys, but us veterens as well.

[Capt_Christo]

Thanks for the leads guys

[herrmill]

You crack me up, Mike!

I think those targets have migrated to another forum.

[kazzer]

Originally Posted by herrmill

You crack me up, Mike!

I think those targets have migrated to another forum.

Oh! Spike & Chester? Yes, I heard (saw) their yapping and woofing over 'yonder'.

I recall I gave someone some advice about anodising, but he was swayed after listening to Spike & Chester, Spike being our 'new self-appointed anodising expert', and Chester his yapping pal who goaded on Spike at every opportunity.

To set them off, all one had to do was mention the word 'anodising' and Spike would start up, 'Bark, woof, bark, woof', spewing out mountains of irrelevant information and all the while Chester was jumping up and down yapping,"Yea Spike, go get 'em Spike, you tell 'em Spike, yap, yap, yap!" ('em referring to me)

http://moonrakers.com/Spike.mov

Spike's overall problem is that he's fresh out of school, sporting a pair of eager testicles and thinks he knows it all after reading a couple of books on the subject.

The only cure for this sort of young puppy yapping is a visit to the vets, a simple incision and squeeze, and tranquility would reign once more. Oh! If only it were that simple.

[Sub culture]

Gone to the RC underverse.

[Bill Harris]

Back in the early 1980's I got into amateur astronomy/telescope making and by trial and error did a home-brew anodizing on my machined aluminum telescope parts (or, anodising and aluminium to Mike ). Not an expert by any means, but I can say that Caswell's process is close to correct.

"--Bill

Originally Posted by kazzer

Oh! Spike & Chester? Yes, I heard (saw) their yapping and woofing over 'yonder'.

I recall I gave someone some advice about anodising, but he was swayed after listening to Spike & Chester, Spike being our 'new self-appointed anodising expert', and Chester his yapping pal who goaded on Spike at every opportunity.

[Aeroengineer1]

Mike,
I think that it is time your maturity reflect your age. We all know that you are out to sell a product, and generally I stay out of your spats because I have a good friend that I told long ago that I would not venture too much into yours and his business relationship in an effort to ensure that I did not have an effect of the food going on his table. I do find it sad though that someone in their late 20’s can have a more mature approach to disagreements than a post middle-aged man. You say that perhaps I am just testosterone fueled and want to show my “superior” knowledge, when actually you might notice that I do not post that much at all on the forums unless I have work to show, I am attempting to moderate contention, or answering someone’s question. I have nothing to sell by my giving out of information, therefore there is no benefit to me to push my opinions; you on the other hand do have something to sell. I love to learn when I am wrong; a few here and on other forums have pointed me towards new information correcting my knowledge. Despite this, you never attempt to present actual information of substance that could change my opinion or knowledge. This coupled with the fact that you do have something to gain (read here: selling your plating products to others) and your lack of presentation of information makes me not believe at face value the information that you post. Your past history of threatening lawsuits also does not bode well for your credibility.

All this aside, let me share with you a bit of my background so that you can know that I do know what I am talking about and that I am more than someone that has been an engineer for three years now (by the way this is not considered “fresh” being out of school, I may be young, but not as green as you suggest). While in college I worked in internship with Honeywell for 2 ½ years, before that I worked aircraft restoration since I was 12. In that time I have participated in over 20 restoration projects, I have built at least 15 wings (covered 3 or 4 pairs), built up a handful of empennage/tail cone assemblies, plus the repair, installation, and maintenance of many other aircraft. I also participated in quality control and FAA documentation ensuring that processes were performed correctly. As recently as a year ago I built up several cowlings, ailerons and performed a major repair of a vertical stabilizer. I am a very hands-on person with a manufacturing background and more than book knowledge. While working at Honeywell, I worked under a materials engineer that was researching the use of coatings for actuator/solenoid components for the reduction of effects of sand and dust and salt fog testing. These coatings included anodization, electroplating, and electroless plating. I have seen these samples come out of the salt fog testing, logged their performance, and have seen the pictures of the cut and etched samples under the microscope. You cannot tell me that there is not a difference between the aforementioned coatings unless you are flat out lying. Currently I am the lead project/design engineer for a multimillion dollar project; we have quite a few other engineers that could have been chosen for that position, but it was laid upon my shoulders. I am not saying that I am an engineer with 20-30 years of experience, but my company trusts me with their profits, I think that a modeler that has a few $50’s on the line could trust me too.

In the end remember never did I say that these conversion coatings could be done by the average hobbyist in their basement, nor did I say that it would be cheap, I only said that there was a difference, and that one type of coating may be more appropriate than another coating given a certain situation. I am sorry that perhaps I have cost you some business, but if you had been more forthright in your efforts to educate rather than to push a product, then you may have still had a sale. I hope this clears up any of the false information that may have been said about me.

Adam

PS Also Mike, it is ok for you to call me by name; I know yours and you know mine please try and use it the next time you try to insult me, I thought that we all stopped calling people names sometime before we left grade school.

[HelloMoto]

Originally Posted by kazzer

Oh! Spike & Chester? Yes, I heard (saw) their yapping and woofing over 'yonder'.

I recall I gave someone some advice about anodising, but he was swayed after listening to Spike & Chester, Spike being our 'new self-appointed anodising expert', and Chester his yapping pal who goaded on Spike at every opportunity.

To set them off, all one had to do was mention the word 'anodising' and Spike would start up, 'Bark, woof, bark, woof', spewing out mountains of irrelevant information and all the while Chester was jumping up and down yapping,"Yea Spike, go get 'em Spike, you tell 'em Spike, yap, yap, yap!" ('em referring to me)

http://moonrakers.com/Spike.mov

Spike's overall problem is that he's fresh out of school, sporting a pair of eager testicles and thinks he knows it all after reading a couple of books on the subject.

The only cure for this sort of young puppy yapping is a visit to the vets, a simple incision and squeeze, and tranquility would reign once more. Oh! If only it were that simple.

Speak English man!

[kazzer]

Well, I've patiently waited for Chester to start up his yapping, but I guess he's round the other side of the barn. :-)

Lets go back a few steps here. Some one asked if he should use brass or aluminum to machine an endcap, pondering the weight differences and corrosion. I suggested aluminum, but to anodise it. Anodising is commonly used in pool equipment and handles chlorine reasonably well.

It's quite obvious from this thread that 'Spike' here was not trying to stay out of it, but was trying to put me down. "I hate to break it to you Mike" says it all. You were itching for a fight, itching to show off your knowledge of the subject. It follows that you would like to do this as you like everyone to know you are an important person, an 'Aeroengineer' no less! Delusions of grandeur perhaps?

Originally Posted by Aeroengineer1

I hate to break this to you Mike, but there are some very distinct differences that separate the Type II and the Type III style anodizing processes, bark, woof, bark, woof - etc. etc.

Do you really think I didn't know or understand the differences?

If we look back over the past few months, we'll see that Spike's pal Chester has a history of posting negative comments or suggesting 'alternatives' whenever possible regarding Merriman and myself, so much so that we have laughed about it frequently. Considering we don't think he was one of the people we instructed our lawyer to send a 'cease and desist' order to, (which BTW was complied with by the parties involved - thank you gents) we could only ponder how big the burr was he sat on. (I'm always suspicious of someone who hides behind a non-de-plume and hasn't courage to show his face).

I first became involved in anodising TWENTY YEARS AGO. I was running and writing computer programs in DOS and the Internet was barely alive. (Forums hadn't been invented - wasn't that pleasant!) Information was scarce, and documentation rare as the few larger companies kept their process well guarded. No one in North America was selling an anodising kit. In fact I was the only person selling any sort of immersion plating kit. We were completely out on our own. Over the years, we refined the anodise kit process, but it still had problems which created much technical support for me.

About ten years ago I was contacted by a gentleman named Paul Yursis, an electronics engineer and gun hobbiest, http://forum.caswellplating.com/phot.../size/big/cat/ who had seen our kit, and he suggested that it was difficult to control. He listed all the problems we had, and as I was dealing with them on a daily basis and he'd just hit several nerves, I was interested to hear what he had to say. "Most commercial anodisers simply throw current at the part, wait a while, then when it looks good, its done. If it takes a color, then you know you have a good film. As for type III, it's more difficult to control, and short of destroying the part in tests, difficult to prove you have it. You are therefore, at the mercy of the commercial anodiser, someone who probably simply throws current at it, 'til it's done."
I soon employed Mr. Yursis as a technical advisor and between us, we developed the LCD (Low Current Density) Anodising system. I spent over $10000 in hard cash on this project. (Read about PAR & the 720 Rule in our Free Manual). We developed & marketed The Sputwelder, a devise for actually welding the aluminum hanging wire to the part to ensure good connections. I personally developed the technique of welding the wire to the part underwater to minimise spatter.

I quote Paul Yursis' assistant Neil Johnson, who says about type III, "Manufacturers know that most people can't tell the difference. The only way to determine if a coating is truely Type-III is to be aware of the color limitations of Type-III or to chemically dissolve the aluminum, leaving only the aluminum oxide, which is then weighed to determine the density. A rather expensive, time consuming and destructive process. The thicker the coating, the easier it is to damage the cells. This is especially true on part edges. Since anodizing only grows at 90 degree angles to the aluminum surface, it is easy to strike the edge and break off the anodized cells."

See http://forum.caswellplating.com/anod...anodizing.html for much more detail.

You will note that Neil also mentions that thicker coating become more brittle and more prone to breakage. He also states you can grow a type II to almost any thickness, it's a matter of time. Considering that the WTC end-cap we are referring to here has lots of 'sharp' edges, a thicker coating is probably not a good idea. We certainly aren't looking for wear capabilities here, we're looking for corrosion resistance.

I think our engineer here is caught up with the MIL Specs he's familiar with, rather than a practical involvement in the actual process. Whereas I started my involvement in anodising on a daily basis when Adam (he's pissed at being called Spike) was seven years old, or to envisage that better - when most kids lose their milk teeth.

Adam claims

Originally Posted by Aeroengineer1

Despite this, you never attempt to present actual information of substance that could change my opinion or knowledge.

Verbal diarrhea Adam? You don't have enough space here for me to post everything we have on this subject, and why should we - it's all on our forum at www.caswellplating.com. Our submarine forum has more technical documentation on it than any other site, our Anodising forum has thousands of posts, many covering type III. We have thousands of photos of anodising jobs. I have an anodising manual, (Yursis & I wrote it). Don't be so lazy, read it, you'll better understand the actual process and perhaps you won't make such stupid comments. I am not going to reproduce any of that here, it's a waste of space - RTFM - that means Read The FREE Manual!

Now lets discuss my motives. You say I'm pushing product, which in this particular case, really isn't so. I had suggested reading the LCD manual, which will point to the products we use, but anyone with half a brain will soon be able to figure out that all they need to accomplish an anodised part is some battery acid, a battery charger and a few light bulbs. They can even use FOOD dye to color their parts. Seeing as our man here had two end-caps he wanted to do, it would hardly be worth his while spending several hundreds dollars on one of my kits. He'd have to be darned stupid to do that and I am sure he is not. I'd have gladly helped him anodise the parts at home quite easily (it's what we do here). I would have (if it hadn't been for all the barking) suggested he post a request on our forum under 'services wanted' and sent the parts to one of the many thousand proficient anodisers using our kits and who are growing 'controlled thickness films', unlike many pro's. Some of our customers have developed from 'back-yard' businesses to having dozens of staff and taking on government contracts.

And here is the predictable response to Spike's posts.

Originally Posted by jaguar75

Thanks for the brilliant reply Adam.
I have decided to use aluminum and go with the hard finish.Are there more color choices for the hard finish?

Obviously, the gentleman is confusing 'hard' as being better. He's plumbing for type III, yet he wants colors. You (Adam) have forgotten the main objective here, protection from chlorinated pools and you've recommended the wrong product to solve his problem.. He wants 'hard' now because he thinks its tougher, but Type II is perfectly adequate to give him protection from the pool.

If the anodiser has heavily coated it, it has now become extremely brittle. Remember your pro-ano guy isn't monitoring the individual thickness of each part, (especially if we see Chester's comments below).

Originally Posted by expfcwintergreen

Exactly, therefore why even bother with the anodizing step at all. Unless you want pretty colors, then you would need to go Type II.
If you have a metal finisher in your neighborhood, talk to them about your project, let them know what you are working on and they may toss it in the bath with another job at minimal/no cost. Anodizing is a batch process, same cost for one piece or a hundred. I farm a lot of work around to different shops and find that I can get the occasional "government" job done on the side.

Great! Toss it in the bath with a ton of other stuff, he says!
Yep! Follow these hounds and you'll get great results eh? Nice one Chester. Yap! Yap! Yap! And of course, lets not forget the 'Lets get Caswell and Merriman' plug there, 'Why bother with the anodising step at all' he says. Perhaps he's thinking, 'That's another order Caswell won't get, thanks to my post!' He sat on that burr again - and forgets I would never have sold this guy a kit, so I never lost a sale.

Finally, Adam and his little 'band of brothers' have gone at lengths here to shine their bad light, but at the end of the day it is very hard to argue against my companies BBB record, $50 million in sales and our TWENTY years of experience in training customers and solving anodising problems every day!

Anyhow, I think you all get the picture now.

I wonder if I can pull rank here and shut this thread down before we have Spike, Chester and their gang start barking, woofing and yapping again?

To quote one of Mr. Merriman's pet phrases, "Move along folks! Nothing more to see here!"