Gruntbull Anodizing Woes. Not a happy camper...AGAIN!
Update: 11/21/08 Gruntbull and I are working together to get this situation resolved once again. 3rd times the charm.
Background: Something about paintball anodizing has always facinated me. I always like the fact that you could take a POS gun and reanodize it and revitalize it. Ever since pbnation came out with the anodizing section I was in there learning all I could about this particular metal finishing process.
In 2006-2007 I had an idea to create a website called pbpixels.com in which we would showcase the talents of many paintball anodizers that are in business. From years of lurking the ano forums I found that anodizing is one tough job, espeically for paintballers on pbn
Well I built the first version of the website and had almost everything up and running then I lost my hard drive. Now pbpixels.com is a place to put AGD relate stuff im interested in. I spent alot of time writing articles about and learned each company and saw which would stand out above the rest. I recently bought a Euro Xmag and thought it should get a face lift. With my years of keeping track of the various anodizers one stood out. Gruntbull Anodizing. I have always thought that they came out with some of the best ano jobs around. I loved the fact that they would post pictures of finished jobs so the customers could see them and they have had tons of great press on any forum I went to. So me choosing Gruntbull was a no brainer.
10/14/08: Gruntbull Received 12 parts to anodize. Red to black to red fade. I attached a picture of one of the old smeared xmags see here...
Original Gun:
Idea for project, but red:
10/29/08: 15 days later I recieve my marker back from Gruntbull. It was a pleasant surprise seeing a package outside my house so early. I thought it was going to take longer..
I opened the package and saw that the ano job didn't come out the way I wanted.
-Feedtube seemed to have been turned to far and unscrewed a bit and took off a good chunk of anodizing. I couldn't take a picture to prove my point so I thought I could cover it with a sharpie.
-Surface scratches; This confused me the most. The parts were well packed and no metal on metal or anything but the parts had many small scratches on them.
-I asked them to remove the emag trigger magnet as Ruler_mark had a tough time removing it. They went ahead and drilled a large diameter hole into the trigger to get out the magnet. There is barely any metal to actually mount the magnet back onto because the hole is so big.
-Body seemed to have been dripped on by the black dye and had weird acid wash splotches on it.
-Gripframe seemed to be the worst and after the red fade they dripped more black dye on the gun and it came out a weird blotchy acidwash finish.
I wasn't very happy with the way it turned out.
Gripframe Splotches:
Body Splotches:
Fade is good, acidwash crap is not:
Part of the E-mail I sent to Gruntbull Handling it well...
The scratches and the hole don't really bug me too much because they are in areas that arn't visible but the spots/smudges within the fade really take away from the gun. I attached a picture of what I'm describing to you. I do appreciate all the hard work you guys do and the turnaround was great. I expected the gun to return in couple weeks! But it just makes me upset that I didn't receive the kind of quality that Gruntbull anodizing stands for.
The scratches and the hole don't really bug me too much because they are in areas that arn't visible but the spots/smudges within the fade really take away from the gun. I attached a picture of what I'm describing to you. I do appreciate all the hard work you guys do and the turnaround was great. I expected the gun to return in couple weeks! But it just makes me upset that I didn't receive the kind of quality that Gruntbull anodizing stands for.
Robert, I'll try to address your concerns in order. Sometimes faded parts do get black dripped on them, sorry it didn't turn out as nice as you would have liked. None of the parts were scratched when they left our shop so if there was any shipping damage then you should file an insurance claim. Your insurance ticket should be on the package, it was insured for $100.
This is the amount that we provide free. The hole in your trigger was necessary to remove the magnet, we couldn't just let it dissolve away as this would contaminate our anodizing solution. Once a new magnet is installed the hole will be hidden. Your marker arrived around the 13th. and we shipped it out the 27th., that's a 13 day turnaround from the time we received it to the time we shipped it out.
I'm willing to work with you on re-anodizing the body and frame, if you pay for return shipping I'll eat the labor. I also encourage you to take advantage of the $100 insurance coverage, just make sure you have that taken care of before you ship the parts back to us. I hope you find this solution satisfactory.
This is the amount that we provide free. The hole in your trigger was necessary to remove the magnet, we couldn't just let it dissolve away as this would contaminate our anodizing solution. Once a new magnet is installed the hole will be hidden. Your marker arrived around the 13th. and we shipped it out the 27th., that's a 13 day turnaround from the time we received it to the time we shipped it out.
I'm willing to work with you on re-anodizing the body and frame, if you pay for return shipping I'll eat the labor. I also encourage you to take advantage of the $100 insurance coverage, just make sure you have that taken care of before you ship the parts back to us. I hope you find this solution satisfactory.
So once again I package it up and send it to them... Ted promised that they would rush back my ano job ASAP. I sent along the barrel,breach, body, and gripframe so they could correctly color match the parts....
Gruntbull:
11/21/08:17 days later I recieve my marker again. So once again I reopen all of the parts like its Christmas day. lol and sure enough. The parts look like **** again. The Barrel and breach don't match the body/rail at all. The body is a weird purple but the breach is completely black. NONE of the parts actually match
*side note. Yes black dyes=purple and color matching=hard
And the fade for the gun actually looks worst than it did before. BOTH times they got the fade wrong. Along with the gun I sent/printed out tons of pictures just to make sure they were going in the right direction.
Btw, they only reanodized the body/rail nothing else. They anodized 12 parts in 15 days or 2 parts in 17 days.
Red to black to purple to black to purple red to regular red fade:
I am not happy with the outcome of using Gruntbull Anodizing. I understand the hard work they do and how difficult it is to achieve perfection, but thats what people expect when you post pictures of beautifully faded markers on their websites. This experiment was also to guage to see if they could handle two of my project SFL Emags. Needless to say, they will not be touching anymore of my paintball guns. My markers are an investment and I will not tolerate a low quality anodizing job on them.
Proving a point:
This experience has left a sour taste in my mouth for this Euro Xmag. In the next few months don't be surprised to see this for sale as is. That or I'll send it to Maghog to mill the **** out of it *I WISH*
I shouldn't of sent it back in....
Thanks for Reading, if you did. We all have had frustrating paintball experiences, I've been slow joining the club
-Robert
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