Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik
Are you sure about that? I don't have any specific knowledge, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me from a mechanical standpoint. I mean, the anodizing process doesn't care about surface geometries, so anodizing before or after wouldn't be too much different. And having a bare aluminum-aluminum wear surface sounds like a rather poor idea to me, what with aluminum's propensity for galling and all that.
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I'm basing that mainly on the high-quality fine-pitch aluminum gears available from SDP/SI and PIC Design, and those gears I've observed in random precision machinery. (So "most" isn't strictly the right descriptor—more like "most of the ones I've encountered".) Those ones are quite noticeably machined after anodizing (plus it says so in the catalogue).
As for galling, in a normal atmosphere that will oxidize the bare surface, at least there's some protection. I don't know if the tooth-to-tooth contact stresses are high enough to break through the natural layer of oxide and promote galling.