El Beast - Initial design phase, comments and critique welcomed!

**Zeeflyboy** · 07-10-2018

Didn't buy a kit - it's all home-brew I'm afraid... I can perhaps do a more detailed post on all the equipment/stages if there is interest?

Problem in the UK is that they have now made it pretty much impossible to buy or possess battery acid/sulphuric acid without a special license, so if anything happens to my anodising solution I'm a bit stuffed (thankfully I bought and mixed my bath before the ban). It would be legal to sell it in concentrations less than 15% which is still more than needed for the LCD process I'm using... but I haven't seen anyone doing that yet. I have seen some people having good success using Sodium Bisulphate (NaHSO4) which is readily available as a pool PH adjuster, but there is much less info out there. In theory it should be similar to sulphuric acid anodising (it's sulphuric acid + a sodium base) but I have no idea if there is any downside to eg the durability of the coating. It is something I may have to experiment with at some point to ensure I can keep anodising for a long time!

**Nickhofen** · 07-10-2018

Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Didn't buy a kit - it's all home-brew I'm afraid... I can perhaps do a more detailed post on all the equipment/stages if there is interest?

I am interesting,lol!
If you have the patience and time of course!

**Zeeflyboy** · 07-10-2018

Ok, I'll try and do a more detailed dive at some point.

So something something no time for test parts? lol.

I done gone goofed - anodised the bearing top plate today trying the other dye.... it was meant to come out a nice dark gunmetal grey but it is actually as black as the night. I left it in the dye bath 10 mins like with the red dye, which clearly was far too long.

Wife told me it looks good that way and I should just do the whole thing red/black. What do you guys think?

Brushed finish with purple scotch pads.

Bubble bubble

That ain't grey....

Fitted pics - what do you think? Just go for all black?

**JOGARA** · 08-10-2018

Black and red looks dope.

**Nickhofen** · 08-10-2018

Looks good to me!

Click image for larger version.

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**Zeeflyboy** · 08-10-2018

Yeah it does look good and is growing on me. Saw it in the daylight today and it does look nice...

Next time I get a chance to play I will anodise a scrap piece to 0.6 mil and see how that looks, I suspect at 1mil the dye colour is just too strong and causing the blackness but the only way to be sure is to try!

**Zeeflyboy** · 08-10-2018

Oh and speaking of daylight, I got a better picture that is more representative of how the red looks in person - you can sort of see the deep metallic sheen here... must say I love the colour.

**Nickhofen** · 08-10-2018

Ferrari red! : )

**AlexDoran** · 18-10-2018

Fantastic

**Zeeflyboy** · 21-10-2018

Thought I would do one more experiment based on a suggestion from dharmic, I took 0.5L of my already-mixed-to-instructions dye and diluted it with a further 1.5L of DI water... so waaaay more dilute than specified. The part being anodised was my tensioner roller, I anodised as before with 6amps/sqft to a theoretical thickness of 1mil and then used the diluted dye at 60 degrees celsius followed by a nickel acetate seal.

Any guesses as to the colour?

BLAAAAAACK.

So as far as I can tell, with my particular setup/dye/pixie dust, grey is pretty much impossible for me to achieve.