Done with Blue Ox - a cautionary tale

[davidbrady]

(06-07-2018 13:17)RainbowrvGreg Wrote:  one of the problems with aluminum parts is it is hard to see cracks because the primer paint seems to stick better and there is no rust to show during a walk around. aluminum also lacks rebound like seel. you can bend steel out of shape and back several times but aluminum just fails.

In a different thread I asked about Blue Ox discontinuing my Aventa LX tow bar. The Aventa LX has steel arms, but that ball and socket gizmo is aluminum, . Luckily it's not painted or powder coated so I can inspect it for cracks. I found this reasonably priced aluminum crack detection kit on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dye-Penetrant-Cra...B00XLW4BRC; it consists of a cleaner, a dye penetrant, and a developer, no back light needed. Magnaflux also makes a kit but it's twice the money. True, if you keep steel stresses below around 30,000 psi it'll never fatigue; whereas, aluminum is always fatiguing no matter how low the stress.