Questions about masking and plugging and rectifiers, noob

[Paintbalaguy]

How do I plug and mask a a internal area on my paintball marker that I want left alone if the body is already anodized and stripping the ano there may affect the tolerances to enough that it will break important air seals and if I only plug it for the ano stripping solution and leave no plugs in the anodizing solution will the internal insulateing ano keep the solution from affecting tolerances, same for the sealing solution?

If I put in a paintball marker that is screwed together with aluminum screws in a electrolyte bath, will the screw get stuck and bond with the marker? If this is not okay to do, is it okay to connect the aluminum wire to all the parts in the bath and hang them in seperate places in the bath and adjust the amps according to the some of the area of the parts?

Also do rectifiers plug into an outlet or just regulate the power from batteries with exact incraments?

I am thinking of buying the small 3 amp one because the biggest parts I need anoed are a a little more than half a square foot if the answer to the second paragraph is no that cant be done but if the answer is yes I will need a slightly larger rectifier but caswell does not seem to have one that will work well enough for anodizing say a trigger which is extremely small and one that will work well enough anodize a 1 or 2 square feet with a good 5-6 amps. This is a real problem for me beacuase I dont want to have to spend the money on 2 seperate power sources for a total of $400. Does anyone no of a rectifier that will do .1 amp to 6-10 amps?

I no alot of these question are noob questions but I just need to get started and get everything I need for this and I dont want get caught with a expensive rectifier that cant handle little parts or one that cant supply enough power for bigger parts.
Thanks for the help, Eric Laakmann

[acidrain]

You are worrying too much about internal tolarances... everybody strips and ano's the entire gun. I've done lots of paintball guns, and all of them were completely stripped and re-ano'd with no ill effects (sometimes more than once).
The one item I don't strip and re-ano in the bore of a two-piece barrel. Just get some rubber corks from Lowes or where ever and plug the front and back protecting that critical bore. Don't worry about the breach, ram tubes, regulators, etc.
As for ano'ing only a few parts at a time, I highly recommend all the parts be ano'd together and dyed together so that the color and look comes out the same.
As for ano'ing small parts and large parts, I suggest getting a rectifier that is capable of supplying enough power to do your largest batch. I found the 10A power source the perfect size for paintball guns.
For smaller parts, just add a sacrificial hunk of aluminum in with the batch so that the current can be spread out over a larger area, and therefor more controllable.
Hope that helps.

[Paintbalaguy]

ya man, that does help, I just hope a cork will servive long enough to keep the stripper out then inside of the barrel. I still need my question about aluminum screws holding together parts in the bath and what exactly a rectifier does answered(regulate current from outlet or battery).

Also are most screws from home depot/lowes aluminum or iron or someother supstance?

Thanks acid rain for the help, do you still play for that team?

[Sid03]

the rectifier will be plugged into an outlet, not hooked up to a battery

most of the screws your probably talking about would be steel. you dont want to use those in the ano solution.

[Paintbalaguy]

thanks for that info, I am gonna be buying the 10 amp rectifier and I will just donate one the old spyder or cocker bodys to be anoed when ever I am doing smaller parts.

Does the place were I attach the wire to the opject I am anoing show any sign of it? If I place a part on a rack will the place the object is in contact with the rack resieve any ano and does it matter if the rack is to close to a cathode but the part that its sitting on isnt

[acidrain]

Oops, sorry... about the screws; yes, you can use aluminum screws without anything bad happening. That is a good way to attach the wire, but not so good of a way to keep acid out of a passage.
Yes, where the wire is attached, it will show a place where ano does not occure, so be thoughtful of where and how you attach wires.
One thing that works well for me is to use the aluminum grounding wire available from radio shack... it's a heavy gauge wire that can be threaded with a 6-32 die, then just thread the wire directly into a threaded hole.
The other size wire I use is .035" aluminum welding wire. It's pretty easy to come by, and works well for wrapping and twisting tight around outside threads like barrels.
Of course the ideal attachment method is with a sput welder, but I haven't worked my way up to that yet. :P