Hey Guys and Gals,
I’ve heard many time DMS Members talking about anodizing, but not knowing how to do it has kept me from getting involved. After watching this video, I can see why members have said it is so easy. The video is linked at the point of anodizing, but if you are interested I would suggest going to the start of the video and watch to the end, because Grimsmo is doing multi layer anodizing on this piece of metal.
Ease of process is not the issue. It’s the disposal of the baths and their chemicals. It’s being treated as though we would dump gallons of the stuff down the drain each time it’s used. In my opinion, it’s a series of mountains made from molehills, but my opinion does not help us keep the Board happy, let alone any governmental officials…
On the other hand, you could probably do the anodizing that they’re doing in your home and no one would be the wiser…
We are kind of at the same place with anodizing that we are with beer brewing. We can help you with the tools and show you the steps, but you are going have to leave the Space to do it.
In the video, he is using baking soda and water as the bath. He says that this solution has worked for them better than the harsher sulfuric acid. I believe the issue is education and price.
I didn’t understand the process, and I bet neither did the board. Also, projects like this at DMS tend to request for a professional high expense setup to start with before there is a lot of interest in the group. The second issue is use. This is a finishing technique for metals and I personally haven’t seen metals projects at DMS consistently or even at all get to this point. This is my experience and if you can cite some examples to challenge it I would consider them. To my knowledge the Small Metals group is probably the most likely group to have example of projects which would gain from anodizing.
The problem isn’t just the electrolytes or baths. The problem is the metal that gets suspended in the solution. Most metal bath discharges are regulated, and those that aren’t, have to be demonstrated not to be each time they are dumped or stored.
Thanks for the correction, it show even further how i am not versed on this.
You’re welcome.
Incidentally, titanium (shown in the video) happens to be one of the metals that the City of Carrollton apparently doesn’t regulate (we need to call a different department than I spoke to, to be certain).
Titanium anodizing is super-nifty because the colour you get is based, not (as with aluminium) on a dye in the bath, but on the thickness of the oxide layer.
The same is true of niobium which is what I am interested in doing. Aluminum is a lot more complex.