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View Full Version : Aloxide price and usage?



bruce edwards
07-18-2012, 11:26 PM
Hi just heard about aloxide and I see Gravograph sells it. I emailed them about price but it's 11am here in the Philippines and I'm very curious
as to the price of a bottle of it? Anyone buy it from them? Any experience in using it and your results? What are the differences of aloxide vs Cermark/Thermark?
I've seen so many posts about Cermark but nothing about aloxide.
Thank you

Gary Hair
07-19-2012, 12:38 AM
What they are selling is a chemical that oxidizes the metal and makes it turn black, or a semblance of black anyway. I haven't used their product but I have two bottles, one for aluminum and one for brass. They are made by Ability Plastics Inc., though I bought them from JDS, if I remember correctly. Google "aloxide" and you'll get lots of info about it.

Gary

bruce edwards
07-19-2012, 12:43 AM
What they are selling is a chemical that oxidizes the metal and makes it turn black, or a semblance of black anyway. I haven't used their product but I have two bottles, one for aluminum and one for brass. They are made by Ability Plastics Inc., though I bought them from JDS, if I remember correctly. Google "aloxide" and you'll get lots of info about it.

Gary

I got the price, it's $10.77 for a 3oz bottle. Thanks for the info about Ability Plastics :)
Now I just wonder if anyone here has any experience with it good or bad? It doesn't seem to be very effective as I couldn't find any posts about it.
LOTS about Cermark/Thermark tho.

Richard Rumancik
07-21-2012, 11:18 AM
Aloxide (or similar blackening chemicals) and Cermark don't have much in common with each other. Aloxide is used mainly in mechanical engraving I believe to make freshly-engraved lettering/graphics more contrasting. I suppose you might use it in the laser business but I'm not sure how it would be directly applicable, because a laser can't really engrave down into bare clean metal which is required to get the oxidization to occur in a uniform manner.

In my experience you will get a dull dark contrast but not really black in my opinion; often more like 70% black (as Gary says, a semblance of black). It will not be able to resist abrasion like Cermark (which is not usually an issue as it is normally sitting in the recesses of the engraving.)

I don't know how you plan to use it, but you need to determine if it is really suitable for your application. When used with mechanical engraving the coated metal plaque becomes a "resist" so it does not oxidize while the engraved text does. If you ablated a lacquer brass plaque with a laser you might be able to get it clean enough to oxidize the underlying metal but in my experience lacquers don't ablate 100% and if that is the case the blackening would not work well. However I have not tried this - maybe someone else has.

bruce edwards
07-21-2012, 12:04 PM
Thanks for that information. I guess that's why I don't see anything about it on here. hehe I get a lot of requests for black letters on anodized aluminum tags.
I have used Cermark/Thermark with varying amounts of "success" so I was looking for another option.

Randy Digby
07-21-2012, 12:55 PM
We used the product from ability for years when we would drag engrave anodized aluminum to darken the engraved areas of light color (silver, yellow, gold) anodized pieces. Worked fast and good.

bruce edwards
07-22-2012, 2:05 AM
Cool. I'll buy some and give it a shot. It's inexpensive so why not. Thank you for info

Mike Null
07-23-2012, 8:05 AM
I agree with the others. The product is used to darken bare metal--aluminum and brass. I use it often for brass that I have drag engraved. It is not likely to work on anything you do with a laser.

Martin Boekers
07-23-2012, 9:58 AM
Never using this, if you had bare metal, then clear coat it and engrave through the clear coat would the metal oxidize
or does it have to be a fresh cut?

Paul Phillips
07-23-2012, 1:44 PM
Bruce, I'm assuming that you are trying to blacken Aluminum not Brass as the Aloxide is specifically for Aluminum, the Gravoxide is what you want for Brass, these are just the New Hermes brand names for the chemical solutions, they are fairly common and can be found from most chemical supply places, the Brass black uses a Selenium Dioxide solution and the Aluminum black uses Selenious & Phosphoric acid and cupric sulphate solution, (just reading the labels I'm sure one of you chemical engineers can add to that if you like).
Martin, in my experience yes, it had to be fresh cut, I did try lasering the clear coated solid engravers Brass that we use on our rotary engraver but never had luck with that method, (only with the diamond drag/etching method), never tried the clear coated Aluminum though.
Hope this helps,
Paul

bruce edwards
07-28-2012, 11:17 AM
Hi, yes I am planning to use it on aluminum as I do a lot of pet tags and dog tags. Thanks for the info