thanks again for your input Acidrain. we made our first attempt this morning and it didn't go so well... we did get some development of an oxide layer on the test piece but we couldn't get any of the dye to stick. now that you mention it, there was a definite oxidation/corrosion of the connecting wires and so i bet that poor connection was part of the problem. another contributing factor was that we only left the piece in the sulphuric acid for about 40 min.
i just discovered and printed out an older thread that should really be called "how not to anodize" (
) where the guy tried using grape kool-aid to anodize his parts red. while i was skimming over the plethora of advice, i encountered a reference to the
"720 rule"? do you have a good link explaining what that is?
(PS--the guys changed their mind again and ignored what i had to say about stainless steel paper clips. thus our sulphuric bath is full of little bits of iron now from where the paper clips were completely eaten through. i laughed at them.
they're now going to go out and purchase some more Al wire for us to use.)