Painting A 30 Year Old Anodised Aluminium Mast

[HG02]

Could some one advise me a a good practical method of painting an old anodized mast please
I am restoring a Snot version (as Herreshoff would say) of a H28 a Walker H28 nice old boat and the Gold anodized masts are coroded in places and I would like to give them a fresh coat of white and do the rigging while there down on the hard I have Googled and found a few using air craft paint stripper and then alodine but have read alodine is nasty stuff (cancerous) . Also read anodized mast do not like paint as far as adhesion goes Any recommendations please for method and paint to use

[tomfl]

like to know more about this

[model 10]

It's sad to hear of another thing that causes cancer. I've used a lot of Alodine and sometimes your gloves leak. You get stained fingers and I guess cancer. It's totally the cat's meow along with a phosphoric acid etch and good primer. There are primers with acid in them but they are not really the best way to go.
Just be more careful with the gloves, it's not that hard.

[roverhi]

Painting an aluminum is a adding another nightmare to boat maintenance. The corroded parts will self protect by oxidizing unless it's caused by dissimilar metal contact. In that case put an insulator between the part and mast. If it was me, wouldn't add the headache of paint.

It's a bitch to get paint to adhere to aluminum. The oxide that begins to form on aluminum minutes after it has been cleaned to 'bright' metal is the culprit. You can mechanically abraid the surface to bright metal or clean anodization and/or use a chemical treatment. Areas where the anodization has broken down need special care to remove all the corrosion. Then a quick coating of Zinc Chromate, Alodine or whatever to seal the aluminum from the elements. Paint manufacturers have systems for painting masts from prep, to undercoat, to finish coat and should be followed religiously to get the paint to stick long term.

Properly prepping the mast is a long and involved process. It's amazing how many nooks and crannies that have to be cleaned out. A guy refinished his painted aluminum mast next to me while my boat's topsides were being painted. Took him nearly as long to get the hardware off the mast, sand all the bubbles down to bare meta, clean up the corrosion and get it ready for the prime coat as it did to get my topsides painted.

Should be no problem painting with anything as long as you do it outside and don't stick your nose in the paint can and snort the fumes. Cancer warnings are a bit overblown. In California, everything causes cancer. Glad I don't live there, would've been dead 40 years ago.