Hi Rod, Sorry to hear about your troubles. The sticking may not be aluminum corrosion, but might be a burr on one of the through holes, which could be digging into the other member and possibly exacerbated by a slightly out of round condition from over tightening the hardware that held the joint together. If there is an out of round condition you may be able to correct it by squeezing slightly across the largest diameter of the joint.
Try heating the joint with a torch (hotter the better, MAP or Oxy-acetylene), try to concentrate your heat evenly around the outer piece, the more heat you can dump in quickly means you can raise the temperature of the outside piece before it conducts to the inner piece, thermal expansion of the metal may loosen you up enough to slip the joint apart. To take it even further, using dry ice you can lower the temperature of the inner piece to shrink it. And another thing that could work is thermal shock, get the joint hot (torch) then get it cold (dry ice/ice water) back and forth a few times may work your joint free. Another thing you can try: build a slide hammer to help you knock the joint apart. Lastly, go chemical and try to dissolve the aluminum oxides with a solution ammonia or sodium hydroxide (lye), this will also eat at the aluminum so avoid over exposure and cleanup well when done. Also, be careful if playing with these chemicals; read up on the safety datasheets and don the proper protective equipment. Good luck, Greg N2GZ On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 6:50 PM, Roger Graves <[email protected]> wrote: > I need to separate KLH 3 inch aluminum boom sections. When assembled 20 > years ago I used Penetrox on them so hopefully they are not welded > together. In fact one of them separated 1/2 inch then stuck. Would there be > a “penetrating oil” that would help to free/lubricate these joints to make > the separation easier? > > Thanks and 73, > > Rod, VE7VV > > > _________________ > Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband > _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
