Does anyone here have experience anodizing various types of metals or other materials? What would be a good way to get started learning this skill? Would someone here be able to teach a class on it?
I have done this, but it has been a long time. If I have time to work with it, I feel that I could easily remember how. It is not real hard to do. I should be able able to teach. We used niobium .
Iād be interested in this as well if it resulted in a good quality coating.
Iāll kick $100 toward this kit if anyone else wants to contribute.
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Thank you all!
I brought this up at the last Science meeting. One of the women said that she used to get beautiful colors from anodized titanium. I had never priced anodizing kits, before, so I was a bit surprised that they run a few hundred dollars. However, if we have enough interest in it, we might get an anodizing kit. The trouble is, I donāt know much about what to buy or how to use it. So, I need people who would be able to advise me and use the equipment enough to justify us buying it.
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Maybe we could offer you that chance?
What kind of coating? I saw one place offer a kit that it said should be used only on extreme wear parts that need a hard surface.
Thank you; that is very generous of you.
I notice that it says it includes everything except the power supply. Iād like to find one that includes everything (simply because I am looking for simple) and Iād like to be able to try titanium (among other things).
Make sure we understand the waste stream processing requirements before going too far with this. I think it is a valuable capability, and would most likely eventually make use of it, but my understanding has usually been that it is worth paying to have it done rather than deal with the waste.
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Thatās a good point. Iām hoping that people who are familiar with this work would be able to advise me. I did see something about a low-hazardous waste kit, somewhere. Casewell uses battery acid (available from NAPA Auto Parts).
The tree hugger version of many methods rarely produce high quality resultsā¦but my interest is still piqued
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This method is close to what we did. I donāt remember doing it in a bath or anything.
Let me check around and see if there is someone local we could bring in to teach a class. It will have to be next week for me. Or someone could check with the Dallas Craft Guild and see if they have a teacher. I learned in a inter semester class at Northlake and the lady also taught at the Craft Guild.
I had instructions from her on how to make the setup, but it may have wandered off with a friendās ex (he promised to make us one). I will check and see if she retrieved it
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This is from THE Expert It think we used the electric paint brush
http://www.riogrande.com/ad/Niobium-and-Titanium-from-Rio-Grande
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I saw an advert from Rio Grande for anodizing kits. Are they really āThe Expertsā?
I ran across an interesting overview of anodizing for the commercial machine shop. It explains basic concepts and what to consider when deciding whether to bring anodizing in-house.
http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/bringing-anodizing-in-house
The considerations given in the article make me think that we would do well to start with titanium anodizing, and maybe spread to aluminum when we are more familiar with the process.
Reactive metals is the EXPERTS, they are the folks that popularized it. Yāall might also check and see if CA/ or Jewelry wanted to help with the cost, since it is a cross committee tool.
I think at Northlake she gave us an overview and we went to work. The whole course was less than 2 wks long. Rio Grande is one of the big names in jewelry supply, I think that is where the rolling mill and disc cutters came from. They are not always the best price on things. I tend to buy metals from others, check out Reactive Metals, they used to have a store.
Itās not as nasty as my nitrite acid that I have used for eating the burs off copper tubingā
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http://issuu.com/reactivemetalsstudio/docs/rmscatalog8-3-15sml?e=3878733/14571259
Their catalog. I want some niobium sheet and wire, the wire makes wonderful earwires. Heck I have titanium earwires!
Given that the space already has suitable supplies, I chose the one without such. But that have other options. More importantly, they are the longest running supplier of plating and anonodizing kits and supplies in the US (20+ years). They also provide the dies and other chemicals.
and a kit for other reactive metals (titanium, niodium, etcā¦)
Oh, and BTW the battery acid they specific is simply a known quality sulphuric acid. It is also known as drain cleaner, so is a relatively benign chemical and can be disposed of after being neutralized with baking soda (or other base), or used directly in any of our clogged toilets (it is drain cleaner as well).
Former lab assistant here. Drain cleaner is typically a mixture of sodium hypochlorite (bleach, NaClO) and sodium hydroxide (lye, NaOH), not sulfuric acid (H2SO4). I double checked a couple of MSDS, and didnāt see any that were H2SO4.
Sulfuric acid is not benign and shouldnāt be dumped down a drain after shaking baking soda on it. The dissolution of H2SO4 is extremely exothermic. It would be better to make a solution of NaHCO3 (baking soda) in water and slowly add the acid to neutralize. Beforehand, you need to calculate the amount of baking soda you need for neutralization (stoichiometry!) so you donāt end up with a bucket of half-neutralized H2SO4ā¦
Best method is paying somebody else to do it or taking it to the City hazardous materials disposal depot.
Home Depot, has a gallon jug of drain cleaner whose only ingredient listed is H2SO4.
As to the process of neutralizing, I was expecting the chair of the Science committee to understand the basic process of properly neutralizing an acid. Heck, they could even make it a class on titration. It isnāt rocket science and you donāt need a āprofessionalā any more then you do to change the oil in your car.
BTW, some PH paper is cheap and easy insurance to ensure the acid is properly neutralized. It is also important to understand that the anodizing process we are talking about here isnāt using large quantities, nor high molarity acidā¦
I checked the first two MSDS that popped up for ādrain cleaner MSDSā. Turns out result 4 showed H2SO4. It didnāt state a concentration, but a quick google shows ābattery acidā (such a dubious term) between 4M and 5M. Not dilute (~1M), not concentrated (~18M IIRC).
[quote=āwandrson, post:18, topic:5032ā]
As to the process of neutralizing, I was expecting the chair of the Science committee to understand the basic process of properly neutralizing an acid.[/quote]
Iāve seen too many lab personnel screw too many simple things up to not state the obvious.
Maybe a better descriptor wouldāve been āeasiest methodā not ābest.ā This is a metaphorical oil change, I agree. Just needs to have due care taken.
[quote=āMathewBusby, post:19, topic:5032ā]
I checked the first two MSDS that popped up for ādrain cleaner MSDSā. Turns out result 4 showed H2SO4. It didnāt state a concentration, but a quick google shows ābattery acidā (such a dubious term) between 4M and 5M. Not dilute (~1M), not concentrated (~18M IIRC).[/quote]
The instructions for the annodizing kit specify diluting the acid. Battery acid is a pretty benign version of sulphuric acid as a couple of generations of car mechanics can attest to. We have gotten entirely too concerned about ārisksā when we (society) donāt grasp the likelihood of those risks.
[quote=āMathewBusby, post:19, topic:5032ā]
Iāve seen too many lab personnel screw too many simple things up to not state the obvious.[/quote]
I have witnessed incompetence in every field, doesnāt mean you dumb things down to deal with idiots. As far as I am concerned idiocy and incompetence can and should be a self correcting problem.
For small scale, the easiest method is the best. At the scale being discussed so far we donāt need to go through the hassle or cost associated with commercial disposal of commercial quantities.