CATEGORIES: POLISHED ALUMINUM - ALUMINUM BRIGHTENERS

ALUMINUM BRIGHTENERS

We carry three types of Aluminum Brighteners:
1. Safe/no hazardous fluorides - non-corrosive to humans or glass
2. Fluoride salt type - much safer than HF for glass and humans and very good at removing certain mineral stains such as fly ash.
3. Hydrofluoric Acid products - very aggressive / hazardous to humans and glass/tends to create aluminum oxide/ cost effective but dangerous.

SAFE ALUMINUM BRIGHTENING
We will begin with the safe aluminum brightener Sabre. This product is very different than any other product we have seen. Other products that purport to do the same thing have a heavy hit of sulfuric or caustic, which make them corrosive to individuals. Sabre does not. The real benefit of Sabre is that unlike any other aluminum brightener it does not work by corrosion. All other systems clean by eating away a small layer of the aluminum. I remember seeing an old Exxon tanker in a truck wash in Connecticut that had been sold to another company and the Exxon signage had been removed. The vinyl striping down the side had protected the aluminum from the corrosive material that had been used to clean the tanker. While I did not have a way to accurately measure the depth of the ridge that remained, it was obvious to the touch and sight that a significant amount of the aluminum that had not been protected had been eaten away. This may have been accepted practice but to accept destruction as the standard method of the simple process of cleaning some aluminum can not be considered as good or beneficial practice. Another negative aspect of corrosive cleaning is that it tends to oxidize aluminum, which makes it more difficult to clean. Sabre ends both these problems, plus is much friendlier to humans. Sabre ships as non-corrosive and non-hazardous, yet this acid blend will brushlessly clean 95% of any aluminum immediately when used as directed. The beauty of Sabre is that it is also inexpensive. To get Sabre into your program may take a few washings to remove the HF oxidized metal and resmooth the surface for really cost effective regular cleaning.
Directions: The safety benefits begin immediately though when you first use the product. Depending on how bad the surface is, Sabre will be applied somewhere between straight and 20:1. Because of the safety (you don't have to worry about mirrors or glass) you can use any application system to apply the product. That means you can safely brush, down stream, up stream, or low pressure apply this product. Lay on the product at the right strength and proper method - single or double soap - and then rinse carefully to remove all the soil and oxidation. It is generally considered bad practice to let any soap dry on the surface, if this does occur simply reapply and rinse.

FLUORIDE SALT BRIGHTENERS
Versitall is a very good broad-spectrum brightener, which significantly reduces the hazards of HF brighteners while still giving cost effective results. This was our safest product before the development of Sabre.

I used a product like this formula for years to safely perform such diverse acids as cleaning bad eave stains from aluminum siding without covering any glass or plants, one stepping Pepsi Cola trucks in the winter when they were all salt yellowed, and to keeping the shiny swirls on Raven trailers. Actually the new improved version of the product I used has become our HF replacement in restoration of porous brick and stone.

This product is especially good on certain mineral stains and soils such as fly ash and clay stains. It is impossible to write specific instructions for a product this versatile but it can be used between straight to 40:1 depending on the application and is very easy to use and is very non-stressful to work with.

HF BRIGHTENERS
These are very straightforward to use. Simply find the right dilution and be careful basically of getting the product on anything that you don't want etched. HF will corrode whatever it touches and on humans it burns to the bone and can cause death. We don't like to recommend these products, but as they are industry standards we have two of them. Brite 10 is designed to attempt to balance the aggressiveness of HF with the safety we have achieved in our other products. It is fairly forgiving on glass if you do not let it dry while it can quickly bloom and brighten on aluminum. It also tends not to oxidize as readily due to the phosphoric present in the formula. Alumix is your basic rip and tear product.