Corrosion Protecting Steel Without Painting In Order To Preserve the Appearance

Guys,

Do you know if there is an easy way to protect steel from corrosion without covering it in paint? Basically I like the polished metal look of the steel rods that retract the canopy pins on my tipup canopy and I would rather not paint them. It's a minor point, I know, but this is a custom airplane after all.

Thanks!

They could be chromed, or nickel plated, maybe?

Can you substitute for Stainless?
You can clear coat over steel. It will protect it, but over time, any nick or scratch will expose the raw steel and it will start to oxidize.

Maybe powder coating - I know they have colors that look just like metal.

Either re-make them from stainless or coat them with Picklex 20.

Thanks!

Great ideas, thanks guys. I will investigate the Picklex 20 as option 1. Barring that as a solution I will just paint it a nice hammered silver since I already have that in hand. Chroming is a nice option, but since these parts don't have much visibility, it is probably not worth the work ... unless I throw a bunch of other cool touches in ... like the custom canopy latches ... hmmmmmm

This could get out of hand

The myth that powder coating an engine mount or tubular fuselage structure will hide cracks is just that...a myth. I have seen several cracked engine mounts and fuselages that were powder coated and the cracks were very obvious.

Mike H said:

The myth that powder coating an engine mount or tubular fuselage structure will hide cracks is just that...a myth. I have seen several cracked engine mounts and fuselages that were powder coated and the cracks were very obvious.

Click to expand...

I agree with exception. Powder coating requires flawless prep. If an area does not get perfectly clean, the powder coat can flow over and bridge. If that area happens to be in the corner of the tubing where the welds are, a crack can develop underneath and you may not see it until it propagates.
My stock powder coated mount has this exact issue. The powder coating started to crack in the corners of the two lower mount bosses. After removing the coating from that area, no cracks where discovered in the actual steel. You can see by the color of the steel there was a lack of adhesion, most likely caused by poor prep.

I do agree that, most likely, you will see a crack in a powder coated mount well before the point of failure. I have never heard of anyone losing an airplane yet due to a engine mount crack, and there have been a lot of cracks reported.

Check out cadmium plating.