Anodizing Aluminum???

[kroll]

Guys been watching some Youtubes on DIY aluminum.But I was wondering if anyone here has any first hand experience with anodizing?I do have a battery charger and I see some guys uses a battery charger and others use a adjustable power supply.Well I went looking at Power Supply and I see they are running around 500.00.Well with this new ideal that's just to much for me starting out,maybe later if I keep at anodizing small parts.But for now I want to stick with a battery charger.I did do a search at forum did not get much back but that was back few yrs ago.So any ideals like to share or maybe links to something that is helpful,any pics would also be nice.Thanks guys trying to take a plane piece of aluminum and increase the WOW factor thanks guys.

[Crusty]

I've done some and had everything from terrible to spectacular results. I use an old school battery charger and lead flashing from the big box store for electrodes. The main thing is that you have to get your material surgically clean after each process, so I use an induction hot plate to heat my solutions for degreasing, rinsing and fixing along with a digital thermometer. Any call out for water means pure distilled water. I use a hot TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) solution for degreasing and I rinse with boiling distilled water. I use an ice water bath for the electrolysis process while I monitor and control the temperature of the bath (68º F is optimum). I've used RIT black dye with mostly purple looking results except for one piece that turned out beautifully saturated black, and I'm unsure why that was. I've found that the Caswell black dye is more consistently saturated black. The electrical connection to the piece being anodized normally becomes poor on a hook as the oxide grows, so I drill and thread a #4-40 hole in my piece and then screw a 3mm aluminum rod threaded with #4-40 threads into that hole and the rod connects to my power supply. I don't know if it's necessary but I also rinse in a baking soda solution to neutralize any residual acid. If you have a failure (you will), it's easy to strip off the oxide and try again.

Like golf, where only one good shot in a round is enough to make you do it all again, one nicely anodized piece out of many failures will send you back to the tanks.