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I've been searching these forums for DIY anodizing but have yet to come across anything.

Just curious if there is anyone out there who has tried it? I'd like to know what your personal experiences are!

Thanks!

there has been a couple here I believe. One for sure was Jake who goes by bigjeepzz(?). Also simplegreen annodizing of titanium turnbuckles by Askbob. Both goin by memory and there might be another I might've missed. Try doing the search for annodizing by author of either of those you might get lucky...

Todd

Cool, I'll take a look... thanks.

Here's my thread on the topic... http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=21754 That's as far as I have gotten - talking about it. I will post there with any updates, when/if I give it a go...

losiXXXman wrote:Here's my thread on the topic... http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=21754 That's as far as I have gotten - talking about it. I will post there with any updates, when/if I give it a go...

Thank you for passing that along, I'll follow it with great interest . I know you're not located in Canada but do you know if it's as easy to get those chemicals there as well? Still located in Germany, we'll be returning to Canada in the fall so I can't exactly go out to the local hardware store...

Years ago I leanred that you can anodize things blue using a car battery (full size car) and Pepsi. You put one lead in the Pepsi (a fashioned a ring out of hanger wire and clipped the lead to it. the other lead clips on the part and you just drop it in the Pepsi. The color is pretty similar to older AE FT blue (the dull/lighter blue).

Erich Reichert wrote:Years ago I leanred that you can anodize things blue using a car battery (full size car) and Pepsi. You put one lead in the Pepsi (a fashioned a ring out of hanger wire and clipped the lead to it. the other lead clips on the part and you just drop it in the Pepsi. The color is pretty similar to older AE FT blue (the dull/lighter blue).

Hmm...very interesting. Off to google now

One thing I wonder about is the durability of DIY coloration. Sure it's possible to color-ano something, but how will it hold up? I guess if it's only gonna sit on a shelf, it won't matter, but on a runner it will.

I've seen a lot of el-cheapo anodizing that you can practically scrape off the color with your fingernail. I can't remember the made-in-China brand, maybe it's Yeah Racing or Hot Bodies, but some of their colored alloy products aren't very durable.

I don't think you can just create your own color dyes, a la RIT dye, because if that were truly the case, you would see a lot more colors offered by the professional anodizing shops. Check out any pro ano shop's website, you'll probably only see a half-dozen colors offered in addition to black/silver. There's gotta be a reason for this. If it were easier to make your own colors, those shops would have a rainbow of colors to choose from, not just 5 or 6.

Here is a link to a DIY anodizing setup.
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Newman/anodize/

wow, quite involved...

Look at it this way. If it was easy everyone would be doing it.

it isn't difficult, but it involves some nasty chemicals that need adequate handling, and good dyes are a little pricey for one-off's.