no but have a zinc plating kit (can see in my build thread) that worked well and was fun and easy enough to use. Id imagine its similar in that the cleaning of the part to be plated is the hardest bit!
Yes. It's very easy to do and quite cheap BUT getting decent, consistent results is the problem. You can put a kit together for about £25-£30 using common off-the-shelf materials. For cleaning parts you need caustic soda which is available in the pound shop. For the anodising you can use drain cleaner as your source of acid. One Shot is 91% sulphuric acid, so you can adjust your bath numbers for this. You can use battery top-up water to complete your acid mix, and keep bicarb of soda handy (raid the wife's cooking cupboard) to neutralise any acid spills. You can use a lead cathode if you have some available (or can climb the local church roof) but I've used an aluminium cathode in the past with good results. Stick everything in a large plastic tub with a lid and hook it up to a constant 12v source. I've used an old PC power supply for this as I had one laying about and they're far more reliable than using an old battery or similar. They can also provide plenty of amps and are much cheaper than a dedicated bench power supply! The rest is a bit of simple calculation and experimentation. There's loads of excellent guides on the internet which will walk you through. Just google for "anodising home diy" or something and have a read. This one is pretty good, for example: Aluminum Anodizing at home - DIY aluminium Anodising
I always wonder what you do with your vat of noxious chemicals afterwards. Surely you don't tip them down the drain?
I'm all for having a go at stuff but having experienced the pro platers/anodisers workshops I couldn't do with the smell & boxes of noxious bubbling goo in my garage :Vomit: I suppose if the parts are small enough & you can afford to redo/throw em away if it goes wrong then it could be fun :Wideyed:. As antonye said getting a good consistent finish is an issue, billet parts aren't too bad but cast components need a lot of prep if you want to use a sealed colour dye finish.
From what I have read the mixture should last years. Would it not stay consistent if you made a vat of black and just kept using it? Of course you are committing to black.
No a company local to me did it, I had a few things done in gold & black they all turned out good (can't really tell in that photo) but even they were a bit worried it could have turned out a shitty brown colour so it was at my risk. They're pretty high volume so just added them to the batches they were running.
I'll echo antonye's comments, the site he recommended put me on the way. The old computer PSU route is good but I've actually had better results using a standard car battery charger. Use battery acid diluted to the correct strength as the electrolyte. Took a couple of goes to get the technique right but the great thing is if you stuff it up just put the part back in the caustic soda and have another go.
Have a go and experiment! You've got nothing to lose Use old broken parts to test until you get it right and then do parts you want. As DM says above, you just dip it in the caustic soda to eat away the anodising and start again!
I used a tin bath of caustic soda solution to strip layers of paint off a steel motocycle frame which was in bits.... ...............having left the parts for several hours it hadworked a treat......... ........so in my infinite wisdom (aged 16) I chucked in two ally engine cases which had also been hand painted........... .........after six hours I went to retrieve them........ .......they weren't there, but the steel screws that held inspection covers on remained...... Mr Muscle Oven cleaner removes anodising...........but it can also eat the ally if left too long.
You try scrounging a clutch case and one for the kickstart side...... ........for an old Francis Barnett AMC engine.....they were scarce even then......
I have read 1 minute is plenty. But that does move me on nicely to my next question. I want the rear brake pedal and gear lever (selector?) anodized. The gear lever has a gold/bronze sleeve inside. 1: does this come out? 2: what is it made off? (Don't say metal) 3: will any part of the anodizing process melt it? Cheers
It's a phospher-bronze bush (or whatever Ducati purports it to be made out of)........soft-ish so that the spindle thingy doesn't wear. You can press them out fairly easily with a suitable size socket, but the chances are it will bugger the edge of it......particularly as you will need to push it back in.......... A small amount of heating may help it come out easier..... Personally what I would do, is to stick some tape over the hole on one side, then fill the hole with silicon mastic, stricking it off flush on one side, having maded sure it filled the other side where the tape is..............Whip the tape off when it's gawn orf....... Dig it out when you have finished piddling about.........
5 mins with a hair dryer, squirt or 3 of WD40, tapity tapity with a socket and a hammer and bingo. Cheers.
