Home Anodizing Set-up

[DaveH]

Tom,
Great stuff, looks a really good set up

DaveH

[Bill Gruby]

One thing for sure, it will be a professional set-up. Very nice Tom.

"Billy G"

[TomG]

It's getting serious now. The chemicals came in today and I bought the local Home Depot out of all the distilled water they had. I still need to come up with another 20 gallons. Seems like a lot of stuff just to color some aluminum. I also picked up ten pounds of baking soda as a sort of insurance policy.

Tom

[stevec]

Gee Tom, I'm sorta glad I don't have a need to "anodize" anything. I'm already pretty good at "alienating" folks though.

[Mayhem]

I got the feeling when I visited Tom that his neighbours understood his interests. However, I may subscribe to a Detroit news feed just in case there is a raid on a suspected meth lab in Farmington Hills.

[arvidj]

(03-29-2013, 08:11 PM)Mayhem Wrote: I got the feeling when I visited Tom that his neighbours understood his interests. However, I may subscribe to a Detroit news feed just in case there is a raid on a suspected meth lab in Farmington Hills.

No intent to hi-jack the thread here but Mahem may be right about the "it was all just a simple misunderstanding" ... http://www.kfvs12.com/story/21192844/sus...aple-syrup ...

Arvid

[TomG]

A prime example of incompetence in positions of power. I've made plenty of maple syrup myself and can't imagine someone mistaking it for methamphetamine production.

Tom

[TomG]

I didn't have a lot of time to devote to projects this weekend since I was celebrating the coming of the Easter Bunny with the family, but did manage to make some progress on the anodizing bench. I made the rest of the "L" brackets for supporting the heating elements and got the elements and the bubblers permanently installed. I also picked up some 1 1/2" foam and made an egg crate assembly to insulate the tanks and also figured out the best location for each tank to isolate the room temp ones from the heated ones. This is especially critical for the anodizing tank which must remain between 68ºF and 72ºF. I'd rather not have to cool it if possible, but I doubt I'll be so lucky. There will also be a foam panel on top with cut-outs for the tanks, topped off with a finishing layer of the white Melamine paneling for ease of clean-up. The plan is to leave enough room that the covers can still be used to seal the tanks when not in use. I also got all of the heated tanks wired and fished the wires through some PVC feed-throughs in the bottom of the bench. The next task will be to build a sheet aluminum box to house all of the relays, controllers and switches, and act as a power distribution box.

To be continued...

Tom

[Mayhem]

I'm unsure why we celebrate the birth of the Easter Bunny? Hope you found some chocolate eggs Tom and not gifts left by the labs

The bench is coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product, and then some finished products. Do you have something already made up that requires anodizing?

[TomG]

I have hidden Easter eggs under Lab "gifts" before much to the boys dismay, but have never actually confused the two.

I'm actually working on a product that requires some selective anodizing. That is the justification for all of this effort, or at least a good excuse for it.

Tom