We couldn't pass up the opportunity to work with new materials in new ways. We were asked to look at a job at Bexhill on Sea where they needed a new promenade barrier. Under normal circumstances we;d have played the cast iron card strongly, given that it's cost effective, stylish and very long lasting but the brief was clear - the customer wanted aluminium.
This can throw up a few issues, aluminium traditionally does not do too well in marine environments so we had to make sure what we supplied would do the job. Fortunately, having the aluminium hard anodized is a fairly straight forward process.
Essentially, anodizing involves immersing aluminium in a bath of sulphuric acid (called an electrolyte) and running a low voltage electric current through it. The resit of normal anodizing is a thin coating of aluminium oxide (rust) on the surface of the original aluminium. If the solution is cooled to the freezing temperature of water and the amount of electric current increased substantially, this process becomes hard anodizing. This produces a much thicker coating of aluminium oxide - aluminium treated in this way is only a few hardness points away from diamond.
This process will protect the aluminium against the harsh salt environment for some time to come.
With the simple and clean lines agreed, the addition of a machined aluminium cap was the final touch to create a modern, stylish and very clean minimalist seafront barrier.
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