mumzer

Its not Alan...its another eminently reasonable and all-around good guy.

Alan is (i believe) employed in a relevant industry.

Matt H

Good luck and when I am in the market I know where I will look. It is the right thing to try to determine the failure and then, if necessary, own up to the mistake. The company I work for has done it and we are all the better for it.
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KuHL 951

] I wish I could quote you the egghead stuff but it's a bit out of my corrosion niche. I can't access the papers from home but will call someone at work and see if they can help through our member affiliation. Hopefully the papers are free to NACE members. I'll tag anything with "anodizing 2024" to narrow it a bit. This might take a day or two if that's not a problem. I do know that 2024 is a special treament like Travis said. I'll do my best.

Steve

Dave E

I'm not familiar with anodizing processes, but I would probably try to write this one off and sell arms with optional finishes applied by subs chosen by you in the future. I've had to eat product int he interest of customer relations before, and while it does suck, some times the goodwill earned brings more business ahead. BTW, are you still making these arms? Is there a thread I could search for for more info?

Mike S

I'm an entry level metallurgist/materials engineer and I would have to agree with what has already been said here. It sounds to me like the anodizing guy didn't know what he was dealing with and used a solution that caused intergranular corrosion or worse.

Another rennlist member, Bill just had his anodized and I saw them in person. They were absolutely gorgeuos, which should prove that these arms can be anodized properly without any problems.

951Porschiste

Well, I've had my own business for a good long while. It is very difficult to predict what customers will do with your products. Still I believe it is sometimes better to "write one off" and use it as a learning tool to better your product or service. Then next time provide specific instructions about how to use and NOT use the product.

2+2

My suggestion is have him return the parts for 1/2 of the refund and assure him that if it is determined to be your fault, you will refund the other half. However, if it is determined to be teh anodizer's fault, ask him to refund your refund and seek compensation from the anodizer. THat is reasonable and if the customer is a reasonable person, he should agree. If he doesnt take your offer, forget about it as he does not deserve a refund and you really dont want that type of a customer anyways. Just my opinion. Good luck.

richmason

I'm not a metallurgist and I will never have 1200 for a set of billet a-arms but as a potential customer and reasonable person (aren't we all in our own estimation), here's my .02. If the facts as you have presented them are accurate, its on him because he modified your parts with a vendor that you had no control over. Period. End of discussion. Even if he asked your advice and you said "'Sounds like your guy knows what he's doing, should work with no problem." You are still off the hook since someone chemically modified your perfectly good parts. That said, you have to evaluate your potential liability and potential customer base. Is it worth having an enemy over this and jeopardizing your reputation? Are they so expensive to manufacture that you can't write it off as R&D and develop a new policy for future customers? That's up to you. Morally and ethically you are in the clear. Doesn't mean you win though at the end of the day. Sorry for the mix-up - you sound like a stand-up guy.

M758

I work in the aerospace indusrtry. I have not worked with 2024 AL very much but have worked with a Mfg area that worked with cast materials alot. 300 series cast alloy were most common, but a few parts were 200 series. Those 200 series parts you had to be very carefull with due to the copper content. It is very easy to destroy parts in an anodize tank. It even happens to multi-thousand dollar aerospace parts. (These get scrapped so they are not airplanes).

My feeling is that the Anodize house messed-up. Not knowing what alloy those aparts are and sending them throught the wrong process.

Of course to PROVE that is hard.

So simplest thing is to just eat the cost. You cold argue that 1 was bad due your error and the other was not. Then split the cost. This going to be fight and I just depends on how much you want to hassle with this.

Sure it sucks, but you have learned an important lesson as to why there are so many darn warning lables on products you buy.

mumzer

To give you a frame of reference....and lest you guys think that im doing this for the money...the 44 lb billet that the arms come from costs over 450 dollars today.

This is the material cost for the 2024; no machine time, no spindle pins, no bearings, no bushings....just the chunk of metal that goes into the CNC.

2+2

You definitely should not blindingly refund this money IMHO. Sure sellers should be ethical and provide good service, but buyers should be ethical too. It is unreasonable in this situation (where the buyer "modified" the part) to just take the word of a third party (anodizer) and refund the money. If you follow my suggestion or something similar, at least you wont take a full bath if it turns out it was not your fault but the buyer still doesnt cooperate...
The only other comment is that it does not seem clear who's idea it was to anodize it in the first place. If it was your suggestion, I think that there is some responsibility on your part to let the buyer know that it is special material that cannot be anodized like other Al. so that the buyer knows to take care.

thesmokingman

I'm wondering who's idea it was to anodize the parts. If there is room for error here, then half cupability is fair I think. I feel that the anodizer has a responsibility to know all the facts of the metal that they are dealing with, before they just toss it in, persay. I find it odd that the buyer has not questioned the anodizer more, and instead is taking their lead in pointing fingers. At the end of the day it is the anodizer that actually destroyed/damaged the arms!

Customer service is a pain and unavoidable, but it still doesn't sit right with me that you have to refund the full amount. To me, the part didn't fail under its intended purpose and thats pretty important I think.

mumzer

guys...there is nothing unusual about anodizing aluminum.

We discussed anodizing it, and my standard answer is and will remain that an aluminum hard-coat is a great way to preserve the part.

The issue is not that he had it anodized...there is nothing wrong with doing so....the question is really whether or not the anodizing was the source of the destruction, or if there was some yet unknown problem with that piece of material that caused the failure.

All of us have to have a reasonable expectation that the service providers we use, wont make things worse....its reasonable for me, and for him to expect a plater to ask questions about any part that we take to have plated. As we all rely on our doctors and dentists and lawyers as posessing knowledge that we dont have.

I think he has asked his plater a lot of hard questions, but at this point its a case of he said she said between me and the plater....customer caught in the middle.

he knows the plater personally...and doesn't know me...so he believes his plater.

Danno

I say it's the plater's bungle here. Anodizing occurs naturally on the surface of aluminum anyway. It prevents further corrosion; one of the reaons bare aluminum is durable. Man-made anodizing makes this natural layer even thicker and harder. Now there's roughly two ways to do this. One process is color anodizing is for aesthetic color only and the coating is fairly thin. This can be done in less than 1/2 hour in a hot bath. The other process is hard-anodizing and must be done in a chilled vat and takes several hours to build up the thick hard layer.

It's kinda hard at this point to determine what chemical cocktail the plater used, what temperature it was at, what kind of current he was planning on using, etc.

BTW, Bill's A-arms did look very nice indeed!

Travis - sflraver

Another question is .. can they be pitted so badly that they cannot be used???? Do you sleave the connection points?

Have you seen the arms? If he is bitching about cosmetic blemishes then he is out of line.

If they can still be used maybe you could put them on ebay for him and send him back the proceeds of the auction. He might take a bit of a loss but its better than a sharp stick in the eye...