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Rinsing parts for priming with water softened water

Ender

Active Member
Okay. The fact that I’m asking this means I’ve already worried myself. So please don’t point out the obvious that the process uses salt and usually we don’t like to talk about salt and aluminum in the same sentence.

I am priming with Akzo prepped with prekot.

I have to use softened water because my towns water is wicked hard. I’m talking destroyed appliances within a year or two.

I’m wondering if there is any of you were in the same situation as me and had to use it for rinsing your parts off. Because nobody on here is likely to be a metallurgist, I’m looking for more historical evidence that it has or hadn’t led to an issue.

I don’t let the parts sit in a bath forever. At most they air dry while scrubbing, but I always end up having the blow them all off with compressed air. I have parts that have sat for more than a year with primer on them with no issues.

Thanks in advance!
 
Primer

I would think once the primer has cured, the aluminum underneath can't react with anything. That's kind of the idea and why precote, alumaprep or some other surface prep is used.
 
Not a problem

The salt used in water softeners (NaCl) is there to provide sodium atoms which replace the calcium atoms in your hard water. The salt does not dissolve into the water.
 
The salt used in water softeners (NaCl) is there to provide sodium atoms which replace the calcium atoms in your hard water. The salt does not dissolve into the water.

The above is the truth.

IF you are still worried, rinse again with distilled water or Reverse Osmosis water. Distilled water can be purchased at reasonable cost and both can be made at home with the purchase of the right equipment.
 
Absolutely used distilled water . . .

IF you are still worried, rinse again with distilled water or Reverse Osmosis water. Distilled water can be purchased at reasonable cost and both can be made at home with the purchase of the right equipment.

I have worse water than you . . .. definitely use distilled water. For anything diluted or rinsed. BTW, I checked the store produced RO water (Kroger) and it was only 5 PPM dissolved solids, very good, Cheap too. I get one jug of 2.5 gal distilled Mountain blah brand and then refill it with RO.

BTW, all RO water is not the same, it varies a lot, my home RO permeate is 125 PPM. Home water is 2000 +
 
I use store jugs of RO water, AKA "purified water". Just check the labels on the jugs. RO is fine vs. distilled. I also have a softener, and even though it should not have salt in the final product, I saw some corrosion cells on bare aluminum parts I cleaned with the house water, so I switched to RO. No problems since.
 
Adjustable Orifice

Bob asked where the chlorine goes. It gets flushed down the drain when the softener flush cycle kicks in. It can be on a timer or some type of automated trigger. Usually done in the wee hours so you don't use water during the flush cycle. Tastes terrible!
 
where does the chlorine go?

Water softeners use an ion exchange resin that starts out chock full of sodium ions, loosely bound to immobile negative charges on the backbone of the resin. As hard water percolates through, calcium ions exchange places with the sodium. Before the concentration of sodium in the immobile phase is too small to drive the exchange, the soften pumps concentrated NaCl through resin, which drives the exchange in the opposite direction, "recharging" the resin with sodium, and sending the calcium down the drain with the chlorine counter ions that came along for the ride.
 
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