Anodized Aluminium edges not taking dye very well

A. Hi Denvor. I'm not really understanding the picture in that I have no sense of scale (is this picture "actual size" or way smaller or way bigger? And I don't understand what the item is and why such ridges are considered acceptable, or maybe they're even desired.

But I think you're not going to get saturated dye on a thin ridge like this because you don't have good anodizing on small protuberances like those ridges because they're full of sharp inside corners where growing surfaces crash.
Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. I suspect
1. work hardening from a dull stamping/cutting tool,
2) and/or slivers of thin aluminum left behind by the same dull cutting tool, the slivers anodized, clear thru from side to side, then as 100% aluminum oxide, fell off and left bare metal.

A. Hi Denvor,
Please have your customer do better deburring prior to sending for anodize. The sharp edges get attacked badly in the anodize tank and are not able to grow the same nice even crystalline structures as the rest of the part due to what we'd call 'burn' or 'scorch', and don't have the pore structure to take and hold dye correctly. This is a common defect. Removing the burr by buffing or some other means, or adding a 'break edge' instruction to the engineering sheet, will remedy it.