Home anodizing

[DrPhudd]

I finally got all my crap together to anodize at home. Found a small angle fixture I made out of 6061 to do a test run on.

Desmut/Lye bath:

Anodize tank:

Dye bath:

Sealing:

and done:

The dye was too dilute, other than that it worked great. zero continuity and took the dye evenly.

Next... guns

 

[Jabroni]

That is cool!

 

[Average Joe]

Wow, that looks great!

 

[BlackGun]

That looks expensive. I used to have lots of parts anodized for a company I purchased for. I have had motorcycle parts done for myself. Let me know if you start doing it for others. I have some small stuff I would like done.

 

[xernex]

Nice! I used to play with this stuff for anodizing paintball guns and parts. Really enjoyed it, but man one minor imperfection in your cleaning of a part and it was a total redo

 

[Flashpoint]

Noob questions if you don't mind:

Does anodizing harden the aluminum or otherwise have durability increasing properties, or is it just cosmetic?

It definitely wears off after a while. Is it possible to increase the penetration of the color? Does it actually permeate the metal or just sit on top?

Noob minds want to know!

 

[xernex]

Noob questions if you don't mind:

Does anodizing harden the aluminum or otherwise have durability increasing properties, or is it just cosmetic?

It definitely wears off after a while. Is it possible to increase the penetration of the color? Does it actually permeate the metal or just sit on top?

Noob minds want to know!

So anodizing doesn't specifically harder aluminum, but it does ad a layer to the top of the aluminum that is pretty darned hard and can be really scratch resistant if done right. There are also a few different types of anodizing - Type III I think is what you usually see in typical firearms - but I'm fairly certain F-1 Firearms type receivers are Type II like you'd see on a paintball gun. The amount of wear varies from alloy to alloy - IIRC (and it's been a while) 8081 doesn't wear badly at all - 7000 series alloys seem to hold less - again this is from my paintball world experience

Type III is quite a bit thicker than Type II so you can in theory have more penetration of the color - but either way it sits on top of the metal rather than permeating.

Here's a little more http://www.omwcorp.com/understanding-and-specifying-anodizing-2/ if you really want to read.

 

[Flashpoint]

So anodizing doesn't specifically harder aluminum, but it does ad a layer to the top of the aluminum that is pretty darned hard and can be really scratch resistant if done right. There are also a few different types of anodizing - Type III I think is what you usually see in typical firearms - but I'm fairly certain F-1 Firearms type receivers are Type II like you'd see on a paintball gun. The amount of wear varies from alloy to alloy - IIRC (and it's been a while) 8081 doesn't wear badly at all - 7000 series alloys seem to hold less - again this is from my paintball world experience

Type III is quite a bit thicker than Type II so you can in theory have more penetration of the color - but either way it sits on top of the metal rather than permeating.

Here's a little more http://www.omwcorp.com/understanding-and-specifying-anodizing-2/ if you really want to read.

Thanks, I'm only familiar with it wearing off of things like keys, etc. that get a lot of metal to metal contact.