Cleaning hull on aluminum boats question

[Newlight]

>I've used toon brite on my pontoons and it works great. But I
>thought it smelled familiar. I opened a gallon of muritic acid
>and it smelled the same. I tried it with the same results.
>Spray it on and wash it off. At a quarter the price.


Muriatic acid is an impure technical grade of Hydrochloric Acid; that's why it cleans so well. Be sure to cover your hands with vinyl or rubber gloves and wear eye protection. Just plain old white vinegar will do the same(much cheaper too), but will not work nearly as fast. My Dad and I cleaned the aluminum hull of a 40 ft. houseboat years ago with gallons of vinegar and Muriatic for the really tough spots before we applied antifouling paint.

[Newlight]

TEE is right the white color is aluminum oxide. If you want your boat to shine after cleaning with acid you'll have to apply a sealant to keep the freshly etched aluminum from oxidizing.

[Moose1am]

That's good to know. Muriatic acid will etch concrete so be careful and hose it off the sidewalks and driveways quickly so to dilute the acid before it eats a white spot on an otherwise dark concrete slab. :)

I'll get me some muriatic acid and give it a try. Maybe I can park my boat out on the street and clean it there on the asphalt. Don't know if asphalt is effected by dilute muriatic acid or not but I may be willing to find out. If only my garden hose will stretch out that far?

I hope it works without me having to scrub a dub dub for hours on end.

I tried another acid cleaner that was very harsh. This acid will eat the aluminum wheels up in less than 3 minutes. I can't recall the name and will have to run out into my garage to read the label. **** it hurts getting old and loosing my memory sometimes. BRB. lol

It's called Hydrofluoric acid and man it's very strong. The take Hydrochloric acid and substitute a fluorine atom for the chlorine atom. And we all know or should know how reactive Chlorine is. Florine is even more reactive that Chlorine. So if you ever try using this stuff don't leave it on the aluminum for more than 60 seconds and rinse it off THOROUGHLY. I used it on my spare tire's Aluminum Wheel and forget to rinse it good. I stuck the wheel back up under the truck where it's stored and didn't check on it for a few months. When I finally check the air in the spare tire before a long trip I noticed it was completely flat. The acid had eaten and pitted the entire wheel where the rubber tire was sealed and let all the air out. I could not even refill the tire with air as it was leaking around the rim so badly. I ended up having to have the entire rim resurfaced and then they put some new sealer inside the tire to get it to finally seal and take on some air. The Wheels were expensive sport rims. They were brushed aluminum. And some parts of the wheel is polished aluminum. But this hydrofluoric acid will sure clean the brake dust and other grim off these wheels and make them look brand new. Just have to rise them thoroughly for about 5 minutes with a garden hose to get all the acid off them.

Muriatic acid should be safer to use and I think I'll stick with it instead of that Hydrofluoric Acid.

[Moose1am]

"The Works" toilet bowl cleaner is Hydrochloric acid too. Same thing that's in our stomachs that digests our food. Only the Normality is much stronger in the toilet bowl cleaner. It's high concentration or high Normality HCL. One Mole of HCL is on normal ? Any chemists out there? I forgot how to figure the Normality of those acids. It's been 30 years since I had to do that in school.

Suffice it to say it's a strong acid. Not as bad as Nitric Acid but still pretty strong stuff.

Just don't get any on your cloths or eyes or skin. Wear goggles and protective gloves made out of thick rubber or vinyl.

I use to have to work with HCL in high concentrations in the chemistry lab where I worked. And the HF acid was so strong that we had to have a safety hood that was just dedicated to using it with HF acids an nothing else. Some woman who did the soils analytical work at the lab used that HF acid all the time. So she had two safety fume hood in her work area. One for regular acids and one just for the Hydrofluoric acids. I will say this. The Eagle One Etching MAG cleaner does clean my aluminum wheels on my truck fast. Spay it on and scrub in in with a plastic bristle brush and then hose it off all in less than 60 seconds for each wheel.
Regards,

Moose1am

[Moose1am]

Just polish the aluminum with some wax. The wax will prevent air from oxidizing the aluminum won't it?

It took a long while before my cleaned aluminum boat faded or turned dull.

Maybe it depends on what type of aluminum it's made out of. There are lots of different aluminum alloys. My boat is a fishermarine with the thinner aluminum that was made way back in 1978. So that alloy may be much different that the newer boats aluminum. But then again it could be the same. LOL

What's that shark stuff made from? I ain't going to buy something that costs very much.

Regards,

Moose1am