whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

[boatman1971]

i just bought a lowe 170 alum. boat and the alum is tarnished whats a good cleaner to clean it up?

 

[GT1000000]

Re: whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

Raw aluminum creates oxidation on its surface which is what keeps it from actually oxidizing...
You can clean it up with a water/vinegar solution or you can polish it, but unless you want to constantly maintain it looking polished, it will begin to oxidize again in time...
You can preserve the polished look using one of many products available, such as Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish or Shark Hide, among others...
If you want to polish it, you can get it to look like a mirror...similar to what I did on my fuel tank...



Happy Boating...

 

[boatman1971]

Re: whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

Raw aluminum creates oxidation on its surface which is what keeps it from actually oxidizing...
You can clean it up with a water/vinegar solution or you can polish it, but unless you want to constantly maintain it looking polished, it will begin to oxidize again in time...
You can preserve the polished look using one of many products available, such as Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish or Shark Hide, among others...
If you want to polish it, you can get it to look like a mirror...similar to what I did on my fuel tank...



Happy Boating...

i just wanna get the water stains off of it.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

Here is a link to prepping an aluminum boat for painting...some of it may be applicable to just getting it cleaned up...

http://forums.iboats.com/boat-restoration-building-hull-repair/steps-prep-aluminuim-pics-457159.html

I tried using the Forum Search feature to look for ways to just clean aluminum, but I couldn't find any right off...
You could try a search yourself and peruse the multitude of threads that come up and you might find specifically what you are looking for...

Like I said, you can use a vinegar and water solution or one of many products available for cleaning aluminum...try looking through these...
Metal Boat Cleaners & Waxes - iboats

Hopefully the real knowledgeable aluminum guys will pop in and save you some searching...
Good Luck

 

[lokonn]

Re: whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

Napa auto parts has an aluminum brightener that works pretty good. I think it is about $8 a bottle. Used it to clean inside of my boat after teardown and glue removal.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: whats a good cleaner to clean tarnished alum.

Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish works really well. Walmart...Less than $5bucks