March 25, 2004

After finishing my rudder tonight, I decided to alodine my H.Stab spar.  I wish I would have done
this to my other spar, but I didn't.  Hope this tip helps those who, like me, want to alodine and prime
for the best corrosion protection.  (I'm only priming my skins, not alodining them)

I used the box my H.Stab spars were shipped in.  Then, just layed in a sheet of 3mil plastic, from
a roll I got at the home store.  Filled it with about 2 gallons of Alumiprep, scrubbed, rinsed, then
repeated with alodine (using a fresh sheet of plastic).   The way I was able to drain the alodine
was this....before I started, I drilled a 1.5" hole in the bottom of the wood box, and poked my finger
down through it, pushing through a little excess plastic.  After etching and alodining was done, I stuck
a spike down through the plastic in the hole area, and with the dimpled down plastic, it acted like
a funnel, draining right back into my 5gal buckets.  Then I  dabbed off the excess acid with paper
towels and then rinsed the spar with 2 or 3 buckets of water, with the first one being scrubbed
with a sponge.  Now it's a nice gold colored spar of Alodine 1201.







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