My anodizing project

newcoyote

newcoyote

Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
305
So I took the plunge and decided to anodize my Strider SnG. It is my first attempt (doing with electricity as opposed to heat) and I am really happy how it turned out. The picture (at the link) is OK but does not do justice. In proper light there is purple, blues, and bronze/gold. I know I have probably void the warranty but what the hay. I love the look of anodized titanium but have not seen that many DIY jobs. What do you think of mine and can you show me yours?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougrmatheson/6187539644/in/photostream/lightbox/
 
rororo64 said:
Dayum that looks nice! What was your setup for the process?
Click to expand...
Well it was a bit of trial & error. I completely disassembled the thing, took a scotchbright dremel bit to it then the polishing pad with green compound on there. Did my best to buff it up. I got the process info from a video on YT but he left out some rather important info. You prepare a bath of an electrolyte in a non conductive vessel like a big beaker . There are different chemicals you can use but I used water and trisodium phosphate. Then you use a variable output DC power supply. Connect the anode to the titanium being treated and the cathode goes in the water, not touching anything but the water. The thing that the otherwise good tutorial did not mention is every metal in the bath has to be titanium including the electrodes. I had to take titanium clips of of other knives and twist wire around them then dip. Then flip the switch. Shazam! The resulting color is determined by the voltage. I got the result I did with ~25V DC. Here is a link to that video. I did mine basically the same way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVhRPfFLvqo
 
Nice job ! I have several heat colored Ti jobs that I took pics of last night , I will post them in the Customized knife thread in this section of the forum. Yours turned out beautiful ! and I always say warranty shmarranty if you've had the knife long enough so that you know it has no problems that would require you to send it in then you dont really need a warranty. Besides that the majority of problems can be fixed yourself if you just take the time to figure out the 'mechanics' of your folder. you obviously have skill to do so :)
I love the color in it ! and I yoinked your picture and added it to my My Pictures slideshow screensaver , nice addition :)

Thanks for sharing !

Tostig
 
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