Huge Problem

[PBInferno]

Ok so I stripped and beadblasted the parts and it got rid of that stuff, whatever it was, but it left some pretty deep indentations in the parts. I was able to polish most of them out, though.

Also, I tried running a spare piece of 6061 today and I noticed something interesting. A red buildup develops on my cathodes after a couple days of not anodizing, and whenever I used to anodize using constant voltage, it would always come off the cathodes almost immediately after the power supply was turned on. But today when I tried to run constant current, the buildup stayed on the cathodes the whole time, even though the power supply was putting out 30V when set to .4 amps. What could cause this?

And any clue what's going on with my black dye?

[destroyer125]

Originally Posted by PBInferno

Well I tried stripping one of the parts and the anodizing all stripped off, but the abnormal areas were still there. I'm gonna see if I can beadblast it off tomorrow without hurting the tolerances.

I'm also having an issue with my black HBL dye. The part will dye fine, but as soon as the part comes in contact with air, the black fades into a bronzy color. I mixed up a new batch of black dye, and the exact same thing happened. I don't have an issue like this with my other colors, and all dyes are at 140*.

Your black is doing the same thing mine and what appears do be several others. My dye doesnt seem to do it as much as when the batch was new. Try soaking until the part reaches black....wash good...then seal. I noticed it only came out bronzy when I oversoaked them.

[PBInferno]

I can let the part dye for 30+ minutes at 140* and when it comes out it'll be a perfect black. But then the air hits it and it immediately fades to bronze-ish. One part I kept spraying with distilled water after it came out of the dye tank, and all the areas I sprayed kept their color perfectly. I don't get it.

[sswee]

Call Caswell or send a problem report if it's happening with the new dye also. The only thing close to that problem I've had was due to too thin of a coating for the black dye.
SS

[Empire03]

Or buffing compound still left on the part will do that.

[PBInferno]

Some of the parts weren't polished, so it definitely wasn't buffing compound.
I'll contact Caswell about it.

[fourkbmx]

i solve the problem!! i had a little idea of what the problem was on the pic i posted, and yesterday i tried my theory, i found out that the piece was covered by an unknown material this happened because i had some kind of contamination in my tank so yesterday during a run i dip a little copper piece, and kept it there during all the run, i cut the agitation and kept an eye during the whole run and i observed that the copper started to disapear and at the end of the run the aluminium piece was full of a copper surface, and there were no traces of the copper piece in the tank, so for conclusion i think this was the problem you experimented, is this was the case, we need to be more carefull with the contamination.

[acidrain]

Originally Posted by fourkbmx

i solve the problem!! i had a little idea of what the problem was on the pic i posted, and yesterday i tried my theory, i found out that the piece was covered by an unknown material this happened because i had some kind of contamination in my tank so yesterday during a run i dip a little copper piece, and kept it there during all the run, i cut the agitation and kept an eye during the whole run and i observed that the copper started to disapear and at the end of the run the aluminium piece was full of a copper surface, and there were no traces of the copper piece in the tank, so for conclusion i think this was the problem you experimented, is this was the case, we need to be more carefull with the contamination.

I think you just ruined your acid.

[fourkbmx]

i know that the acid i used isn't usefull any more, just want to know if these was the problem so we can now prevent it.

[PBInferno]

Well I recently had an incident with the heating unit for my tank malfunctioning and contaminating the acid bath, so it looks like I'll have to replace it anyways. Once I get enough money to get everything going again, I'll let you know if that solved my problem.