Professional Gold Color

[sage]

Well I ran a test with the Caswell Gold S tonight and I have to say that I think the color I'm looking for is in there but I didn't hit it right on. I anodized at 6A/Sqft for 120 minutes (1mil) and then dyed it, but it only took about 1 minute in the dye to get just a bit past where I wanted to be. The color was just starting to look like paint as I described before rather than a plating. After sealing, it mellowed a bit and now looks like gold aluminum not gold painted aluminum. I think if I do what acidrain suggested (I think) and only ano to .5mil instead of 1mil I may be able to get it right on. I think I'll try it on the final parts and even if it ends up like my sample today I'll be happy.
So Caswell Gold S is probably the color to use.

Another interesting development came from this batch as well. A fellow member of my model engineering society, knowing that I did anodizing, gave me about ten bottles of powder. he called them "shoe dyes". I didn't want to insult him and figured at least I'd take them and dispose of them for him since I didn't fiqure they'd be any good for anodizing. I ran across these bottles again tonight after a few years and found one that was made in 1958 and was labelled some sort of violet. The label was all but destroyed. I mixed about 3 teaspoons in a gallon of distilled water (typical for powders) and adjusted the PH to about 6.
The violet was fantasic. It went right into the metal in about 2 minutes, didn't leach out in the seal and looks really good. I'll have to try the rest of them although most of them are - well - shoe colours. Many shades of brown. Probably awful looking on metal but who knows.

Sage