The cheapest tub pan on eBay

[jwscab]

The color looks right from the photos. Anodizing variation is the norm rather than the exception.

Some of the chassis are definitely different alloys, I have parts that were in the same tank, bath and dye. They came out dramatically different. One is champagne, the other is a really night nice orange gold. These were a rc10 nose plate and motor plate(champagne) and the chassis was a T2.

[JosephS]

The color looks right from the photos. Anodizing variation is the norm rather than the exception.

Some of the chassis are definitely different alloys, I have parts that were in the same tank, bath and dye. They came out dramatically different. One is champagne, the other is a really night nice orange gold. These were a rc10 nose plate and motor plate(champagne) and the chassis was a T2.

It seems like there is a lot to learn about the process. The colors don't look like anything I'd seen from associated. I can see why they went to black then to plastic. It's just easier to get everything consistent.

[Coelacanth]

Holy crap, Greased Lightning sells for $30 here in Canada.

Get yourself some Easy Off oven cleaner (yellow cap), that's what I use to remove anodizing. It's about $5 here in Canada.

[jwscab]

The color looks right from the photos. Anodizing variation is the norm rather than the exception.

Some of the chassis are definitely different alloys, I have parts that were in the same tank, bath and dye. They came out dramatically different. One is champagne, the other is a really night nice orange gold. These were a rc10 nose plate and motor plate(champagne) and the chassis was a T2.

It seems like there is a lot to learn about the process. The colors don't look like anything I'd seen from associated. I can see why they went to black then to plastic. It's just easier to get everything consistent.

I've got some really orange parts over the years

[JosephS]

Holy crap, Greased Lightning sells for $30 here in Canada.

Get yourself some Easy Off oven cleaner (yellow cap), that's what I use to remove anodizing. It's about $5 here in Canada.

I didn't have the same kind of good results that everyone else got with easy off. I started there and finished with greased lightning, which is locally about $10~12 a gallon.

[JosephS]

So I called up the processor to go over the results. First off was an offer to refinish any parts I wasn't happy with. That was a nice offer, but I'll be ok with what I have. I just wanted to know a bit more about how to do this better next time.

Next came the explanations.
The white stuff: it seems like this may have been due to an incomplete stripping or contamination of the parts. This wasn't something that they ran into on the regular. My internet searching seems to support this as a reasonable possibility. It could have been in deeply pitted areas I wasn't able to fully remove contaminants.

The brown shocks: He also noted that the coating was 'powdery' This was due to excess anodization . He firmly things that the shocks were a different alloy than the rest of the parts that came out consistent to each other. He stated the only way that he would know is during the stripping/etching process. Each part when stripped gets a different kind of black coating due to the stripping. I did note that when stripping the shocks it DID have a different result than when I did the motor plates. The initial guess was 2000 or 7000 series alloy for the shocks and caps.

It was suggested that if I were to do this again to have a professional strip the pieces and sort the alloys out. From there it's going to be easier for them to match any desired colors. But each alloy will requite it's own bath, so the shocks and the chassis would need separate baths and the costs would go from there.