Anodized biners ?

[Collin]

Do you think anodized biners are better than non anodized biners?

[Alpinfox]

[darstog]

What, I think, the president is trying to say is that there's no performance difference between anodized biners and non. It's nice to have different colors on different pieces. Red biners for red cams and whatnot. Sometimes W gets a little confused and having his aides color-coordinate his rack can be helpful

[tomtom]

Anodized biners stay shinier longer.

[boatskiclimbsail]

Anodizing is a process by which the outermost 0.002"-0.005" of surface metal is artificially oxidized. It's an electrochemical reaction that in the case of carabiners makes the (relatively) soft aluminum into harder aluminum oxide. Since this is uniform and it extends below the outer surface it doesn't look like corrosion. A fringe menefit is that you can ade dye to the electrolyte when you treat the metal, making all sorts of shiny pretty colors.

 

This process doesn't change the strength of the metal either way, or the weight, or stiffness, etc. It gives a tiny extra bit of wear resistance because the surface metal is harder. Most stone is harder than AlO2 anyway so it will still scratch and wear, just slightly less quickly.

 

Good things are thet it's prettier, you can see scratches and gouges more easily and it will make you feel like your gear will last longer

 

Bad things are they it it adds 10-20% to the cost of the part and your gear won't match when you lose one and replace it with a different batch. For those of us who are colorblind and gainfully employed, these two don't really matter much anyway.

[fenderfour]

Anodization is the part of the process that creates the aluminum oxide. For the record, it's a lot harder than most rock. It's on a softer substrate (aluminum) and gets scraped off.

 

Anodization adds no color. After the part has been anodized, it's cooked in a vat of dye for XX hours. XX depends on the type of the dye and how intense you want the color to be.

 

I'm gonna take off by Catbirdseat costume now.

[Dru]

Yeah, Al2O3 is way harder than most rock (Mohs scale 9!)

[Squid]

What makes anodized Al more amenable to the dye process than regular Al?

[fenderfour]

Aluminum oxide is porous.