Filling Aluminum

Hello All,

My shop has been working with aluminum on our shopbot more and more. We have really dialed in a lot of our settings for each bit and our projects are coming along nicely. I need advice on filling scratches in my aluminum surfaces. Most of our pieces are set pieces and seen by an audience. Surfaces need to be smooth and perfect.

We are sending our current builds in to be powder coated and my contact there said we should use titanium putty to fill in the scratches and grind marks and then hand file and medium polish the spots down. I noticed that aluminum putty also exists, but I can't figure out why i would use titanium putty over aluminum for this application. I noticed that much of the aluminum putty has working temps up to 225 degrees or less. Is this a reason not to use aluminum putty on something that is being powder coated? will titanium putty work well on the aluminum surface?

Thank you in advance.

From a machine shop guy there are many variables to smooth finishes, filling was the last resort, usually not allowed (again our parts were typically used for strength apps). Feeds and speeds, lubricant, removal of chips (no stringy chips allowed ever) However the most commonly overlooked is the material. There are many grades and suppliers and grades can vary between suppliers. When we were doing crazy expensive stuff we used a lot of cast aluminum etc......