Raw aluminum shaper fence plates staining maple door parts

[Lee Schierer]

"Anyone have any tricks to seal raw aluminum "
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Work needs some sanding after routing & milling.
A very light sanding will remove aluminum smear too.

Aluminum is a fairly soft metal and the oxide layer forms to stop corrosion. However, the oxide layer is as soft as the base metal so it rubs off. Only Anodize will make this layer hard enough not to rub off on your wood. The slick tape is also an option. Most paints won't be hard enough to last long and you'll be back to the gray marks before you know it. Anodizing is done a low temperatures so distortion is generally not a problem. Anodizing will not remove surface imperfections like scratches or dings. I would go with hard anodize.

[J.R. Rutter]

I thought you were running all your sticking through a moulder?

Only the miter door styles at the moment. S4S only lets us flip faces and edges to get the best looking parts out of each stick. We also put crown up on every piece, which helps avoid twist after glue-up, and some long sticks have opposing crowns along the length. It adds about 1/2 hour per kitchen to just run sticking on the individual parts, so not too bad. Same with copes - if there is a blow out, it can often be spun to remove it in the sticking profile.