Newbie home anodizing

[destroyer125]

Ive Did chainmail rings...I used to do alot of mailling

Alot of Aluminum Wire used is of different welding alloys and That causes a verible on it coming out.....I found some 16g 6061 Aluminum wire but instead of annodizing the coil i annodized the rings themselves by taking a wire and bending it in half and putting the rings on the wire so they have a god connection....some will not come out

use the Equasion sswee gives andwhen you do a coil for better results slightly pull the coil so the rings arent completely touched each other

[andrewjb]

ive decided i would anodize the coils and then cut because ill be useing a 0.008" blade to cut the rings so all i need is good closures and no one will see the un-anodized ends.

[destroyer125]

if I may ask what are you using to cut them? a Jump ringer or a Drillpress? or something else

[andrewjb]

i haven't got my cutting rigg setup yet, im still waiting for my arbor to arive, ill probably be useing a setup similar to this one
http://www.mailleartisans.org/articl...y.cgi?key=6667
except the face of the arbor im getting extends to cover much more of the blade adding much more stability. one problem i have had is finding a drill or drill press that will spin slow enough because for stainless steel or titanium the blade should spin no more than 200rpm but for softer metals like copper and aluminium the speed doesnt matter too much but the faster you spin the blade the more coolant/lubricant is needed.

PS. Merry Christmass

[andrewjb]

i found the place that sells the phosphorescent pigments and fluorescent dyes
riskreactor.com

[destroyer125]

if you are on the chainmailboard.com they have tons of info there and quite a few people with drill press setups

[andrewjb]

i do have a account on the chainmailboard but i rarely use it, most of the time i use the board on mailleartisans.org
and occasionaly the ring lord forum http://www.chainmailstore.com/cgi-bi...ultimatebb.cgi

i was looking for a good power suply and i was origonaly only gonna buy a 15or 20 amp power supply but my started looking at all these 30 and 40amp ones
i found one on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/DAKAI-POWER-S...QQcmdZViewItem

the bidding started at $1AU.
would that one be good for anodizeing?
should i bid on it?

i did some math and worked out that with that power suply i can do a 30cm coil of 1.6mm, 1/4" inner diameter, in around 1 hour

[sswee]

That PS should work. It says adjustable in voltage and amperage. It doesn't say CV/CC so you might verify that it is. At 15V you will be limited to a 5.5A CD. SS

[andrewjb]

the seller said that, the current varies to keep the voltage the same. so i guess i cant get that one

i was talking to my neighbour who's a electrician about anodizing aluminium and he said he used to anodize knitting needle back after world war2 (i think...) because all you could get were aluminium knitting needles which your make your fingers dirty. and he gave me a few pieces of paper with 6 different patented electrolyte recipes, one of which uses chromic acid *gulp!* and he said he has lots of different pigments which i could use

[mcaswell]

We have a new 20 amp CC power supply on order, it should be here in the next week or so.

Don't use ANYTHING from those old formulae, they will cause you nothing but grief, as will the pigments.


Mike Caswell