BEFORE SENDING PARTS FOR TANTALINE TREATMENT WE KINDLY ASK YOU TO READ THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARATION. THIS WILL MINIMIZE THE RISK OF TANTALINE REJECTING YOUR PARTS FOR TREATMENT.
 

DESIGN DETAILS

Tantaline's Tantalum Surface Alloy for corrosion protection depends on a fully intact tantalum surface alloy on your parts. Attention to weld and fabrication quality must be made prior to shipping your parts.
 

Weld quality:

All welds must be free of voids and defects and must be ground smooth to remove any burrs. For parts where the internal surface is critical, welds must be made to avoid crevices and have complete penetration to the internal surface. We recommend when possible the welds be made internally and externally to create the best internal surface quality. If an internal weld is not possible the weld must be made such that the root of the weld fully penetrates to the internal surface and no voids, gaps or defects are formed. All welds must be able to pass a dye penetrant test.
 

Surface roughness and morphology:

Parts may be shipped with ground, machined or polished surface as long as they are burr free. Maximum acceptable burr high on machined surfaces is 20% of the nominal layer thickness (typical 0.01 mm / 2/10000 "). Parts may be prepared in different ways (e.g. by grinding, polishing, glass bead blasting, vibration polishing, chemical etching or electrochemical polishing) to remove burrs. A rule of thumb for completion is feeling a smooth surface when sliding a soft cloth over the surface.
 

Edges and corners:

Edges and corners should be burr free and as a minimum be rounded to a radius larger than 0.25 mm / 0.01 in. Preferable edges should rounded to be softer than 0.5 mm (1/64 in).
 

Holes:

Holes open on both sides must maintain a minimum diameter to length ratio of 1:10.  For holes open only on 1 side the minimum diameter to length ratio is 1:5.

Threaded areas.

Be specifically aware to remove any burrs after machining.

CLEANING AND PACKAGING

The customer must be sure to deliver parts in the cleanest possible condition (i.e. free of oil and other process chemicals). Tantaline does a pre-treatment including ultrasonic cleaning, degreasing and pickling. The pretreatment is done in order to remove light (non-industrial) contamination. Residuals greases and oils from machining in customer workshops may, is the customers responsibility to clean.  Please be aware of the following issues:

• Parts should be free of oil, grease, fat, lubricants or other metal working chemicals (we kindly ask you to consult your supplier for a suitable cleaning procedure to be performed before shipping to Tantaline).
• Parts should be free of dust, dirt, metal particles, abrasives (e.g. from grinding or cutting) or polishing agents.
• Special attention must be drawn to rinse holes, groves or concave geometries, since contaminants tend to concentrate in these areas.
• Beware to avoid silicone containing cleaning agents (typically found in cleaning products used for home/household cleaning). Silicone is almost impossible to remove subsequently.
• Parts must be dried after the cleaning. We recommend that last cleaning step involve rinsing/flushing in clean (fresh/new) alcohol (ethanol) or clean (fresh/new) acetone and drying in hot air to remove any water from previous cleaning steps.
• Keep the areas to be Tantaline treated as clean as possible. Avoid to write (e.g. with markers) and do not use tape in these areas. If you need to use tape for protection, you may wrap the pars into a thin plastic film (plastic shrink wrap) before taping.
• Parts should be packed in clean closed (or folded) bags to avoid contamination of particles during transport. Larger amount of parts can be shipped in boxes supplied with a sealing lid.
• If you cannot avoid lubricating parts (e.g. non-stainless steel parts), due to risk of rust/corrosion during shipping, please include a reference for the oil and a description of how the oil is removed.