Aluminum

[beastro]

Hi,

Does anybody know what aluminum alloy is used for the extrusions you commonly buy in DIY hardware stores. Obviously they are usually not labeled properly :roll:
Is there any equivalent to a spark test for aluminum to make an educated guess about the alloy employed?

Thanks

Berthold

 

[DavidJ]

Not sure about grade - probably heavily influenced by source country. My guess would be something that age hardens (e.g. Dural), though there are many possibilites.

There are devices available that use X-Ray fluoresence to identify the composition of alloys - if you can get access to one.

 

[robdavis]

Aluminum or aluminium - which is correct?

My understanding is that when ALCOA fisrt discovered an inexpensive way of producucing what was up to then an exotic metal, they produced an advertising publication that miss spelled aluminium as aluminum - they left out the last 'i'. Rather than recall the publication ALCOA let the error go.

Now Americans have aluminum and the rest of the world has aluminium.

 

[beastro]

Aluminum or aluminium - which is correct?

My understanding is that when ALCOA fisrt discovered an inexpensive way of producucing what was up to then an exotic metal, thy produced an advertising publication that miss spelled aluminium as aluminum - they left out the last 'i'. Rather than recall the publication ALCOA let the error go.

Now Americans have aluminum and the rest of the world has aluminium.

Rob,

It is a no win situation. In particular for all of us from non English speaking countries. Whenever I spelled it aluminium there were people to complain about the misspelling as well. In fact even firefox's spelling plugin complains about aluminium and wants to change it to aluminum. It reminds me of one time trying to buy "Semmeln" in Hannover, just to be rudely reminded by the vendor that they only had "Brötchen" and did not sell "Semmeln". For all the non German folks: It is exactly the same thing (small bread loafs).

Berthold

 

[MilesH]

Does anybody know what aluminum alloy is used for the extrusions you commonly buy in DIY hardware stores. Obviously they are usually not labeled properly :roll:
Is there any equivalent to a spark test for aluminum to make an educated guess about the alloy employed?

6061 or 6063 are probably the most likely....

 

[beastro]

6061 or 6063 are probably the most likely....

Thanks Miles. I suspected 6061, but was not quite sure.

Berthold

 

[Lew_Merrick]

6063 is the least expensive to extrude aluminum and what you find in most retail hardware stores. 6061 is commonly extruded, but is usually identified as such as it is usually more expensive.

Having started school in an English priory school (my father was an Anglican Canonical Bishop and assigned to work in Lancaster), I learned the spelling as "aluminium" (along with a number of other English spellings) and had to relearn it when we moved back to the U.S. The tale about a misprint is interesting, but misses the point. American schools went through a "simplification and standardization" effort back in the 1870's that consciously changed the American version of the language away from the British one. (I was forced to write a couple of "papers" on that subject by teachers who though I was being "cute" with spellings such as "colour.")

 

[HaroldL]

Aluminum or aluminium - which is correct?

My understanding is that when ALCOA fisrt discovered an inexpensive way of producucing what was up to then an exotic metal, they produced an advertising publication that miss spelled aluminium as aluminum - they left out the last 'i'. Rather than recall the publication ALCOA let the error go.

Now Americans have aluminum and the rest of the world has aluminium.

I always thought it was either a translation thing with the word or just the difference between British English and American English.
I found this Wikipedia entry that may clear up the confusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium# ... re_history
It seems that originally it was aluminium. :?

 

[AndrewTing]

Aluminum or aluminium - which is correct?

My understanding is that when ALCOA fisrt discovered an inexpensive way of producucing what was up to then an exotic metal, they produced an advertising publication that miss spelled aluminium as aluminum - they left out the last 'i'. Rather than recall the publication ALCOA let the error go.

Now Americans have aluminum and the rest of the world has aluminium.

I always thought it was either a translation thing with the word or just the difference between British English and American English.
I found this Wikipedia entry that may clear up the confusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium# ... re_history
It seems that originally it was aluminium. :?

over here in Singapore, being a previous British Colony, we're using Aluminium... and its always funny that we had to use US keyboard, British Dictionary... and our Windows installation will default with US English...

To make it more complicated, being multi racial society... our Written Chinese (Simplified, same as China) was different from Taiwan and Hong Kong (Traditional), and we speak mandarin like Taiwanese... which is very weird. And the malay language is as told, alittle different from Malaysia and very much different from Indonesia... And we learn so many kinds of dialects / languages that we often forget where it originated from.

 

[memiles]

The OED suggests that the American ‘Aluminum’ is older than the British ‘Aluminium’. The Aluminium entry says the spelling was changed to what is now the British spelling to conform to the spelling of other metals ending with –ium as in gallium and indium.

Mike