What if anodized aluminum body panels?

[awesomeaustinv]

Here's a random thought... What if body panels, instead of being painted, be anodized? Sure, you would have to re-anodize the whole thing after getting so much as a scratch, and getting it to be the exact same shade as the rest of the car might be a bit of a pain. But it would also harden the aluminum and protect it against corrosion, all while looking pretty cool. Or maybe there's some other problem I'm overlooking and this is a stupid idea. What say you, Oppo?

[HammerheadFistpunch]

@awesomeaustinv I love the hard andozing on my bike frame. I beat the crap out of it for 20 years and its holding up great...unlike its rider.

[ItalianJobR53]

@awesomeaustinv If they found a way to tint it blue, i would be up for it

[ibRAD]

@italianjobr53 said in What if anodized aluminum body panels?:

@awesomeaustinv If they found a way to tint it blue, i would be up for it

You can get blue ano.

[just-a-scratch]

I suppose anodizing of larger parts is costly and has unpleasant environmental effects.
[https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/custom-manufacturing-fabricating/anodizing-environmental/](link url)

[Alfalfa]

@italianjobr53 They can do it all sorts of colors. We have some parts at work that we anodize in blue and it's quite a lovely shade.

[Alfalfa]

@just-a-scratch That hadn't occurred to me. It does use some pretty nasty chemicals, which would of course increase a lot doing many large parts.

[LooseonExit]

@awesomeaustinv

UV fade, galvanic corrosion or oxidation in damaged areas, and color match is tough as multi-batch consistency is near impossible. You still have to be careful with it as scratching it isn't that difficult because the coating is brittle, though Rockwell hardness comes in up to 50-60C IIRC. Even Type III hardcoat anodization is only about 1-3mils thick. Grounding issues will accelerate galvanic corrosion in certain conditions as well. It accelerates corrosion in only the exposed areas so the damaged/scratched area could be just trashed with corrosion and everything else will be fine, which is an interesting side effect.

@ItalianJobR53 Anodization comes in clear or a bunch of colors, including shades thereof, so that's not an issue. Blue is definitely one of them. Hardcoat isn't available in as wide an array of choices though.

Totally looks cool, use it all the time for projects. Would be neat on an all AL car body, but upkeep would maybe be the same-ish, just different.

[ItalianJobR53]

@alfalfa I'm on board then
Where do I vote for this?

[2Poor_sh2Furious]

@awesomeaustinv what about powder coating?

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@poor_sh said in What if anodized aluminum body panels?:

@awesomeaustinv what about powder coating?

Powder coating is cheap...for a reason. Quality powder coating is expensive in terms of constituents and process and it still doesn't have the finish of paint.

I have had the entire roof of a lwb Series 3 Land Rover powdercoated. It was efficient and effective but there's no way to make it paint worthy. Plus the aluminium of the roof made the finish 'bubble' in places due to surface contamination (which could have been solved with a primer coat beforehand that would have doubled the cost thus reducing the value over paint).

There is no way I would go with a vehicle that used both alloy and steel components in the frame and body. Galvanic corrosion is a nightmare...even on bicycles.

[Urambo Tauro]

Yeah maybe it is a bad idea... Somebody should do it anyway! For science, for the lulz, for the YouTube views or whatever.

[Someoneatacura]

I'm still waiting for the Teflon car.

[sn4cktimes]

@italianjobr53 said in What if anodized aluminum body panels?:

@awesomeaustinv If they found a way to tint it blue, i would be up for it

Made this stand YEARS ago. It be blue.

[awesomeaustinv]

@italianjobr53 They can tint it blue and all sorts of other colors. The thought came to me because there's an article on Jalopnik about blue anodized aluminum master cylinders (I think) in GM cars, and I wondered why not body panels as well?

[awesomeaustinv]

@just-a-scratch It looks like there are ways to minimize those negative effects, but that's a lot of work just to anodize something, not to mention it would be impractical to send a body panel back to the manufacturer to anodize after bodywork since there's no way a body shop could anodize a part that big themselves.

[awesomeaustinv]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly Someone painted a whole car with blue bed liner once. That was an... interesting look.

[Eric]

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