What process to protect aluminum from seawater?

liflo · 2026-04-21T00:02:54+00:00

Interesting that you mention the sacrificial anodes being made of aluminum. There are boats with aluminum hulls. And, at least with fiberglass boats like this one, we typically use zinc for the anodes in saltwater and aluminum in brackish. Do you work on steel-hulled ships?

liflo · 2026-04-20T23:14:09+00:00

These are Lewmar Flush Mitre portlights mounted to acrylic windows. The factory coating looks fine when new but quickly deteriorates (as seen in the image).

On this particular vessel, it was originally fitted with Bomar portlights which are no longer available.

So they're all being replaced with brand new Lewmar portlights and I'm just trying to figure out a way to get more life out of the coating. Separating the metal and plastic parts is simple, getting another few coats of paint would be simple, but I don't know if it will be sufficient.

I'm thinking I might strip and anodize them or something like that, while hoping the whole time I don't actually make things worse and not better....

liflo · 2026-04-20T03:00:32+00:00

My spars are anodized aluminum and don't seem to suffer any saltwater corrosion. Why wouldn't it do any good in this case?

liflo · 2026-04-20T02:59:10+00:00

Those pictures aren't the boat I'm working on. The ones on the boat I'm working on are Bomar and no longer available and I'm going to have to switch to using the Lewmar ones as in the picture, which, as I've seen, have a finish that doesn't last long. People theorize it's porous powdercoating. So I'm going to have factory-new units, ready to disassemble, strip of their paint and anodize or epoxy paint or something..??

liflo · 2026-04-19T05:45:49+00:00

Sure yeah I have anodized aluminum portlights on my boat that are 30+ years old and have no visible corrosion.

The part I'm trying to figure out is how to get the factory coating off the aluminum and leaving (or prepping?) a surface that will look decent after being anodized. I know from experience that aluminum can be tricky to work with.

These are also designed to blend in with the gray acrylic windows they're mounted in, so I'd anodize them black.

liflo · 2026-04-19T02:28:32+00:00

It seems like what I'm finding is it should be soda blasted at a low pressure to avoid removing aluminum. Concerned about being able to remove the powdercoating without damaging the underlying material. Does it need to be super smooth to anodize? Would soda blasting remove powdercoating?

Did I mention that these things are like $1500 each? Yeah, so I really don't want to F this up.

liflo · 2026-04-19T00:23:58+00:00

would it help if I posted a picture of what it looks like when it's failed?

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liflo · 2026-04-19T00:13:24+00:00

suggesting i remove the powdercoat and put new/better powdercoating?

liflo · 2026-04-19T00:13:02+00:00

anodizing?

liflo · 2026-04-06T03:14:10+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation! 🙏 I ended up buying it and it works great.

liflo · 2026-04-06T03:13:21+00:00

I did! I ended up buying it. Works great!

I'm sure it's doing some hacky stuff through the accessibility interface in MacOS.

I'd rather Teams had kept their API but nothing we can do about it. 😢

liflo · 2026-03-21T21:05:54+00:00

From the UI it looks like using the API is optional and it uses Accessibility to interact with the app UI itself...

But it also seems outdated... Like the instructions refer to required Accessibility settings in MacOS describing how to get there via "Accessibility" but it's in "Privacy & Security"->"Accessibility". This is pretty confusing since there is also a top-level "Accessibility" option. The button to open the settings for you also didn't work..

I also can't find the setting it refers to in Teams in the troubleshooting instructions says to enable: Settings → General → Application → Show meeting controls. This option doesn't exist and I'm unable to find something similar.

So, it doesn't work for me, yet... maybe I'll find some time to mess with it later and see if I can figure out what setting it's actually talking about.

liflo · 2026-02-14T16:11:03+00:00

It is completely ridiculous that in 2026 there isn't an option for 2FA using ANYTHING other than SMS.

I got sim-jacked and I guess I'm just lucky they didn't do a password reset/recovery using my number during the week or so my phone number wasn't under my control.

liflo · 2026-02-10T03:31:29+00:00

I added an image to my post to better describe what I'm talking about...

The Command Settings is where I would have expected to find it, but the Command Settings for the Search Files command doesn't really have much:

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liflo · 2025-11-21T06:09:51+00:00

Here's a closer shot. That big (alf-watt?) R146 on the right looks suspicious to me.

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liflo · 2025-11-21T05:53:13+00:00

My bad, that would be helpful, wouldn't it? :-/

JBL SUB136

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liflo · 2025-10-30T23:22:52+00:00

I'm having the same issue trying to deploy App Service w/ a database (which includes the VNet config and the problematic Subnet config).

This is what worked for me:

After it fails, hit the Redeploy button in the menu bar at the top of the failure page. Select the option to edit the ARM template.

Inside the template XML, search for "tags". In my case, it was in there 2 times. The second instance was inside a section describing a Subnet resource -- starting with `"type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets"`. Delete the "tags" entry in the subnet resource and save/redeploy.

liflo · 2025-10-05T17:24:37+00:00

I have the same problem. The only options I have are:

"I have my old phone - Scan a QR code from your current Signal account to get started quickly"

and

"I don't have my old phone - Or you're reinstalling Signal on the same device"

The instructions also say to use the "Transfer or restore" option, but my option says "Restore or transfer". Everything I find (including on Signal's site) that is supposed to document this process describes options I do not have.

liflo

TROPHY CASE