Stripping flame ano from Ti

[donn_]

There's lots of information on the forum about stripping HA and HAIII from aluminum, but I can't find anything about removing flame ano from titanium.

I started experimenting yesterday, using a a gel drain cleaner which has NaOH in it. It cleaned the lube from the threads, but didn't touch the color.

Today, I switched to Easy Off spray oven cleaner, which contains no lye. Several hours of treatment has removed a little, but not much.

Any ideas?

 

[Morelite]

chemicals won't work, you'll have sand, polish, or machine it off.

 

[donn_]

Bummer!:sick2:

I can do that easily with the broad surfaces of this light, but the nooks-&-crannies will be tedious.

 

[toby_pra]

Thats not easy donn_ but i dont no other way too.:candle:

 

[LukeA]

Nitric acid may work, but there are a bunch of safety concerns when using it.

 

[65535]

Titanium is very non reactive, Titanium Oxide is even less so. Manual labor, or media blasting is the only option.

 

[glockboy]

Wire brush.

 

[griff]

Bummer!:sick2:

I can do that easily with the broad surfaces of this light, but the nooks-&-crannies will be tedious.

Donn,
Dad has a nice " belt sander" you might contact him!:naughty:

 

[donn_]

Nah. I'll use a 36 grit flap wheel on my right-angle grinder.:devil:

 

[greenLED]

Nitric acid may work, but there are a bunch of safety concerns when using it.

I strongly advice against "playing" with Nitric acid... one of the nastiest acids I've worked with (in a proper lab). Definitely not for the occasional backyard chemist.

 

[donn_]

No more chemicals. I've started working on it at my polishing station.

I'm using 15 micron sandpaper and 3-ought ScotchBrite for the broad smooth sections, and 3M Radial disks for the nooks and crannies.

I lock the handpiece of my Foredom into a vise, and chuck the pieces of the light into it with some arbors Mirage_Man made for me. Then I spin the piece and hold the sandpaper or ScotchBrite, in narrow strips, against it.

For the hard to reach places, I mount the radial disks on a Dremel, and spin them in the opposite direction.

After all the ano is removed, I'll go to finer sandpaper (I have 5 and .5 micron), and finer radial disks to finish.

 

[chipwillis]

Let's see the light your doing.

 

[donn_]

It's the Erin A19 which was flamed by LumaFist:

Before:

After an hour of work:

I've got about 90% off the body and 75% off the tail. Haven't touched the head yet.

 

[chipwillis]

Thanks for the picture, looking good.

 

[donn_]

A bit better now. 99% done. There are still a couple of small spots with ano. It seems some penetrated more deeply, or is tougher to abrade off.

 

[toby_pra]

Looks much better now Donn_