[LeeWay]

I think your Wife has a very keen sense of design. I think it looks fantastic and could not agree more with her.

Oh and most of my products have evolved to become red and black.

[zeeflyboy]

Well there might not be a choice - just tried dunking a different part in the dye for 30 seconds rather than 10 mins and it still came out black....

I might just have to experiment with another piece with a thinner anodising layer to see what that does, I think the 1mil may be too thick for this colour.

[dharmic]

Black looks good, has a deliberate, professional finish especially with the laser engraving. Gunmetal would look good too, would visually link with the rails and give it a high tech aesthetic. Honestly, though: red on lime with tiger stripes of purple would also look good when the parts underneath the colour have that level of quality to them. You'd have to work hard to pick a colour scheme bad enough to detract from the beauty of the monster you're creating!

[mactec54]

Cheers!

So something something no time for test parts? lol.

I done gone goofed - anodised the bearing top plate today trying the other dye.... it was meant to come out a nice dark gunmetal grey but it is actually as black as the night. I left it in the dye bath 10 mins like with the red dye, which clearly was far too long.

Wife told me it looks good that way and I should just do the whole thing red/black. What do you guys think?

Brushed finish with purple scotch pads.

That ain't grey.... what do you think? Just go for all black?

Black is good it is one of the hardest colors to get right, so looks good for your first try, 10 minutes is normal for any color what was the temperature of the color tank

[zeeflyboy]

Hmmm, red, lime and purple you say.... hah

Cheers, too kind.

Black is good it is one of the hardest colors to get right, so looks good for your first try, 10 minutes is normal for any color

Yeah I have read that before which is why I was surprised to see it pop out such a nice black when I wasn’t even aiming for it! You know a lot more about anodising (and tbh most things machining related) than me - do you think it’s simply that the coating was too thick for this colour? I was shooting for 1 mil but perhaps I should have been going for 0.5 or 0.6 mil for this one to work properly?

Must admit the black is growing on me, but I think I will try doing a peice of scrap at .6 mil and see how that looks just for completeness.

[zeeflyboy]

Oh and speaking of daylight, I got a better picture that is more representative of how the red looks in person you can sort of see the deep metallic sheen here... must say I love the colour.

[mactec54]

Hmmm, red, lime and purple you say.... hah

Cheers, too kind.



Yeah I have read that before which is why I was surprised to see it pop out such a nice black when I wasn’t even aiming for it! You know a lot more about anodising (and tbh most things machining related) than me - do you think it’s simply that the coating was too thick for this colour? I was shooting for 1 mil but perhaps I should have been going for 0.5 or 0.6 mil for this one to work properly?

Must admit the black is growing on me, but I think I will try doing a peice of scrap at .6 mil and see how that looks just for completeness.

You might find that it is a lot thicker than your .6um probably closer to 15um you won't have good protection if it is to thin and the dye won't take very well if to thin, Type II and III have a max of around 25um to 30um

Sometimes the color can be affected by the material and the finishing, I once glass bead blasted some 6061 and it turned a greyish black just in the anodizing process without any color, yes your red is unusual as it is normally a flat finish, this can be the process you are using or the dye it's self quality dyes can give you the finish that you have so shiny can be normal also

[zeeflyboy]

Just to be clear I was referring to mil, not um (just because the 720 anodising calculator that I'm using to calculate current asks for target thickness in mil).

So on all parts so far I have been aiming for 1 mil or 25.4um, the 0.6 mil would be around 15um which might work better to give the grey?

[mactec54]

Just to be clear I was referring to mil, not um (just because the 720 anodising calculator that I'm using to calculate current asks for target thickness in mil).

So on all parts so far I have been aiming for 1 mil or 25.4um, the 0.6 mil would be around 15um which might work better to give the grey?

Missed that completely mil to um, so your thickness would be in a good range then which is normal, your grey problem could also be that the dye is the problem not the anodizing thickness the anodizing should have no affect on the color

What kind of power supply / rectifier are you using

[zeeflyboy]

I’m using a manson HCS-3400 (16v/40A) laboratory power supply, calculating area in Fusion 360 and using the 720 calculator to work out the amps required which I then set on the power supply and it varies the voltage to achieve the amps requested.

The dye could be the problem, but it is proper professional anodising dye so I would think the problem probably lies with user error (me!). I heat to 60 degrees c as per the instructions and give it a good mix. I do notice that the instructions say to anodise for 90 minutes at 4.5 amps/sq ft which would result in 0.6mil whereas I have been doing 120 minutes at 6 amps/sq ft for 1 mil.... so I think the best thing to do is to test a part at 0.6 mil and see how it comes out. I guess the potential downside is it maybe won’t be quite as scratch resistant with the thinner layer?

[dharmic]

Dumb question, but will running a more dilute black/grey dye leave you with a grey instead of the black?

[zeeflyboy]

Probably could I guess, although I am using the recommended dilution ratio. Something I could try perhaps.

I just ran a test scrap to what should have been 0.6mil according to the calcs.... guess what colour it came out as? BLACK. lol. I pulled it out of the dye bath after maybe 20 seconds just to see and I have to say it already looked pretty black so I don't think there is going to be much choice - black it shall be!

[mactec54]

Probably could I guess, although I am using the recommended dilution ratio. Something I could try perhaps.

I just ran a test scrap to what should have been 0.6mil according to the calcs.... guess what colour it came out as? BLACK. lol. I pulled it out of the dye bath after maybe 20 seconds just to see and I have to say it already looked pretty black so I don't think there is going to be much choice - black it shall be!

As I said I think the problem is with the Dye, where these in liquid form or powder it could of been miss labeled, I have never used a Grey but there are many to choose from

Don't under anodize your parts this won't change the color very much

[LeeWay]

Right and Caswell does bottle their own stuff.

[zeeflyboy]

Liquid form, label definitely says Grey NLN but yes it could have been mislabelled I suppose.

Other than the fact it's not what I asked for, it's a bit of a win if it's been mislabelled - the black is well over twice the price of the other dyes and this size container would have cost £220 instead of £89 and I did want some black dye at some point.

Edit - I've shot off an email to caswell so will see what they say. Slightly complicated by the fact that I ordered from the US amazon site because grey NLN was out of stock in UK :stickpoke


Edit - well that was quick, they claim mislabelled dye is "not possible" and that they would have had lots of complaints if a batch had been mislabelled which is a fair point.

[mactec54]

Liquid form, label definitely says Grey NLN but yes it could have been mislabelled I suppose.

Other than the fact it's not what I asked for, it's a bit of a win if it's been mislabelled - the black is well over twice the price of the other dyes and this size container would have cost £220 instead of £89 and I did want some black dye at some point.

Edit - I've shot off an email to caswell so will see what they say. Slightly complicated by the fact that I ordered from the US amazon site because grey NLN was out of stock in UK :stickpoke


Edit - well that was quick, they claim mislabelled dye is "not possible" and that they would have had lots of complaints if a batch had been mislabelled which is a fair point.

So did they have an answer as to why it come's out Black, I don't use much of the liquid dye so can't say

[rcheli]

That looks really nice. I may have to give anodizing a try.

[A_Camera]

Wife told me it looks good that way and I should just do the whole thing red/black. What do you guys think?

Your wife has a good taste of colours. I think it would look even better if everything was red and black, but... silver looks cleaner for a longer time, scratches are easily cleaned/polished (if you care about the looks), the work are is automatically lighter due to the more reflective surface so you will not need as much artificial light as you would with too much black. Also, now that you have come so far it would take a huge effort to anodize all the parts because you have to dismantle everything and start over with the screwing. Maybe that's done fast, but if you spent time in aligning then that time is wasted as well. So, while I agree with your wife regarding the looks, I would not do it. Maybe on the next machine...

Another thing... Your machine is already the most beautiful one I have seen so far. Now we want to see some videos showing the use of it. If it was my machine then the first thing I'd make on it is a gold medal for myself. Because that design definitely deserves one.

[zeeflyboy]

Ah no it hasn’t been painstakingly assembled - just temporarily put together. Intention was always to anodise the whole thing, the only debate is about colour scheme! I had intended a gunmetal grey but it seems that colour eludes me on the anodising.

I think I’ve decided just to go black/red, but I have a busy week or so coming up which means I won’t be able to get much done and will have time to mull it over.

Yeah I’m excited to see how the whole machine works, but there’s a way to go yet unfortunately.

[zeeflyboy]

Thought I would do one more experiment based on a suggestion from dharmic, I took 0.5L of my already-mixed-to-instructions dye and diluted it with a further 1.5L of DI water... so waaaay more dilute than specified. The part being anodised was my tensioner roller, I anodised as before with 6amps/sqft to a theoretical thickness of 1mil and then used the diluted dye at 60 degrees celsius followed by a nickel acetate seal.

Any guesses as to the colour?

BLAAAAAACK.

So as far as I can tell, with my particular setup/dye/pixie dust, grey is pretty much impossible for me to achieve... could try a different dye but I think I'm just going to go with Black/Red.