TacticalBlade
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2010
- Messages
- 239
For some of you out there, this is old news, but, for others, this could be a sweet way to dress up a simple knife to your tastes, or take that all black tactical knife and give it some color. Works on all titanium, is simple, and relatively safe. I have never anodized aluminum, but from researching it a bit, the chemicals necessary can make it hazardous to say the least. Ti though,only requires a few items and can essentially be free with some searching.
What you need:
Titanium of some sort, polished works much better than bead blasted, I havent tried a stonewashed ti but i'm sure the effect would be similar to polished.
Acetone/ brake cleaner/ simple green
Vinegar (Costco has large bottles, I prefer using it straight, some dilute)
stainless steel wire
Stainless steel electrode (Should have similar surface area to piece to be anodized)
DC voltage source (Car/marine battery charger, Benchtop variable supply, Batteries although the first 2 are more reliable, hacked wall transformers wired in series but dont try this unless you know what you are doing and have a voltmeter to verify and they have to be 1500 miliamps or more)
Rubber gloves (My EMS nitrile gloves work well and are cheap, thicker gloves couldnt hurt though)
Plastic container (Ziploc tupperwares work great)
Process:
Prepare the Ti. The choice of preparation is up to you. Sandpaper, steel wool, dremel, scotchbrite pad, micromesh, etc. If its stonewashed, you can decide whether polishing is necessary.
PUT YOUR GLOVES ON HERE!!!!!
Clean your part with any of the above-mentioned chemicals. Acetone and brake cleaner are my favorites but simple green will work.
You will need a container to house the part to be anodized, I orginally anodized MY umnumzaan so it had to hold the individual scales. Make sure you have enough room to keep your positive electrode off of the part being anodized, Tape the positive electrode(Stainless steel bar) to the side of the container to be safe. Place your part in the container and fill it with enough vinegar that it will be completely covered and more.
Color is obtained by voltage. A quick google search should help you dial in on your colors, or play with trial and error. Low voltage colors are purples and blues, midrange gets in the pink and reds and the top end will be yellows and greens. The nice thing is, multiple colors can be done on one part by doing the high voltage colors first and then polishing off where you want other colors to go. The high voltage green will be unaffected by adding a low voltage blue to the polished parts. Blue however, will turn green when the higher voltage is applied.
You will need to obtain a voltage anywhere from 12-90 volts, this may require multiple battery chargers connected in series (thats black to red with the first red and last black being your plus and minus for the process. Put 5-10 amp fuses between the chargers to be safe) Dont turn them on until you are ready to begin. A combination of a car battery charger, proper filtering with a rectifier and some capacitors and a variable bench top power supply will allow you to fine tune your colors. Dont try the capacitors and rectifiers unless you know what you are doing. Electrolytics can go boom, diodes can burn up and fracture, research it if you want, but try that at your own risk.
Connect the stainless bar thats taped to the container to the positive terminal on the power supply and place the stainless steel wire bent in a "J" shape to not scratch the ti in the negative terminal. Assure that nothing is touching between the positive, and part to be anodized, and then turn your supply on. If nothing exploded, you can touch the stainless wire to the part and watch it change colors. turn the part periodically to assure even coloring and when satisfied with the color, remove the negative terminal and wire from the solution and shut the power supply off. Remove the part, wash it to remove the vinegar residue, and admire your anodized Ti.
Some more warnings:
The Vinegar solution will make you more conductive than normally. This is why gloves are so important. 12 volts can be felt with the vinegar on your fingers, it will tingle and you will feel uncomfortable after a while. 90 volts, whill really hurt and potentially kill if you have a weakened heart etc. Its a safe process provided you use your gloves.
I think that wraps it up. If you try this, post pictures. My anodized Umnumzaan can be found with a search I'm sure.
What you need:
Titanium of some sort, polished works much better than bead blasted, I havent tried a stonewashed ti but i'm sure the effect would be similar to polished.
Acetone/ brake cleaner/ simple green
Vinegar (Costco has large bottles, I prefer using it straight, some dilute)
stainless steel wire
Stainless steel electrode (Should have similar surface area to piece to be anodized)
DC voltage source (Car/marine battery charger, Benchtop variable supply, Batteries although the first 2 are more reliable, hacked wall transformers wired in series but dont try this unless you know what you are doing and have a voltmeter to verify and they have to be 1500 miliamps or more)
Rubber gloves (My EMS nitrile gloves work well and are cheap, thicker gloves couldnt hurt though)
Plastic container (Ziploc tupperwares work great)
Process:
Prepare the Ti. The choice of preparation is up to you. Sandpaper, steel wool, dremel, scotchbrite pad, micromesh, etc. If its stonewashed, you can decide whether polishing is necessary.
PUT YOUR GLOVES ON HERE!!!!!
Clean your part with any of the above-mentioned chemicals. Acetone and brake cleaner are my favorites but simple green will work.
You will need a container to house the part to be anodized, I orginally anodized MY umnumzaan so it had to hold the individual scales. Make sure you have enough room to keep your positive electrode off of the part being anodized, Tape the positive electrode(Stainless steel bar) to the side of the container to be safe. Place your part in the container and fill it with enough vinegar that it will be completely covered and more.
Color is obtained by voltage. A quick google search should help you dial in on your colors, or play with trial and error. Low voltage colors are purples and blues, midrange gets in the pink and reds and the top end will be yellows and greens. The nice thing is, multiple colors can be done on one part by doing the high voltage colors first and then polishing off where you want other colors to go. The high voltage green will be unaffected by adding a low voltage blue to the polished parts. Blue however, will turn green when the higher voltage is applied.
You will need to obtain a voltage anywhere from 12-90 volts, this may require multiple battery chargers connected in series (thats black to red with the first red and last black being your plus and minus for the process. Put 5-10 amp fuses between the chargers to be safe) Dont turn them on until you are ready to begin. A combination of a car battery charger, proper filtering with a rectifier and some capacitors and a variable bench top power supply will allow you to fine tune your colors. Dont try the capacitors and rectifiers unless you know what you are doing. Electrolytics can go boom, diodes can burn up and fracture, research it if you want, but try that at your own risk.
Connect the stainless bar thats taped to the container to the positive terminal on the power supply and place the stainless steel wire bent in a "J" shape to not scratch the ti in the negative terminal. Assure that nothing is touching between the positive, and part to be anodized, and then turn your supply on. If nothing exploded, you can touch the stainless wire to the part and watch it change colors. turn the part periodically to assure even coloring and when satisfied with the color, remove the negative terminal and wire from the solution and shut the power supply off. Remove the part, wash it to remove the vinegar residue, and admire your anodized Ti.
Some more warnings:
The Vinegar solution will make you more conductive than normally. This is why gloves are so important. 12 volts can be felt with the vinegar on your fingers, it will tingle and you will feel uncomfortable after a while. 90 volts, whill really hurt and potentially kill if you have a weakened heart etc. Its a safe process provided you use your gloves.
I think that wraps it up. If you try this, post pictures. My anodized Umnumzaan can be found with a search I'm sure.
