Aluminum alloy is a metal material in the prototype industry, which is widely used and plays a significant role in aerospace, automotive, and mechanical manufacturing. Aluminum alloy has low density but high strength, approaching or surpassing high-quality steel. It has good plasticity and can be processed into various profiles, with excellent conductivity, thermal conductivity, and corrosion resistance.

Aluminum alloy prototype is generally divided into the following processes from drawing to prototype production:

1. Programming: Write machining programs based on the 3D drawings provided by the customer;

2. CNC machining: Using CNC machining equipment to process according to the program written by the programmer, the material is molded into the prototype of the product;

3. Manual processing: After CNC machining, it is necessary to manually tidy up, such as removing burrs, cleaning right angles, inspecting dimensions, and checking whether there are any problems with the structural processing. In addition, the structural components need to be adapted first to see if they can be assembled;

4. Polishing: The surface of the newly machined prototype is relatively rough with severe knife marks. So it is necessary to use sandpaper to polish the surface. After polishing, the surface of the hand board will also be very smooth and fine;

5. Sandblasting: Spray a layer of sand particles on the surface of the prototype to make it look more high-end and perfect (of course, sand is divided into coarse sand and fine sand, and the commonly used sand in prototype factories includes 100 # sand, 150 # sand, and 180 # sand, with the larger the value, the finer the sand)

6. Oxidation: Generally speaking, if an aluminum alloy prototype comes into contact with air for a long time, its surface will undergo an oxidation reaction, producing aluminum oxide on the surface of the prototype.

It is worth mentioning that natural oxidation can cause the surface of aluminum alloy prototypes to be unsightly, so manual oxidation is required. When the aluminum alloy prototype is oxidized, the generated aluminum oxide is a relatively stable substance that will not react with oxygen in the air again and can maintain this color for a long time. Therefore, the purpose of aluminum alloy prototype oxidation is mainly twofold: first, to prevent the surface of the prototype from being corroded, and second, to improve the aesthetics of the prototype.