Acceptable Anodizing flaws?

[Spider-TW]

The real question is "do you think the guy can do better?" When something doesn't come out right, you have to wonder if was lack of skill or lack of attention. Questionful is right, you loose about 0.001 on a surface on re-ano. That block by itself probably wouldn't matter so much as a rail, so it could probably be re-ano'ed if the problem isn't in the aluminum itself. If the aluminum is different, you need someone that knows what to do with it, but then you have to worry about starting with someone else and matching dyes.

Anodizing (generally) eats about 0.001 from the surface to build a good 0.002 layer. When you strip it off, you loose that original 0.001. I've had parts with very thin ano (stripped very quickly) come out to the original dimensions though.

[OPBN]

I have no idea if he can do better. I have seen other work he has contracted, and it looks great.

[maniacmechanic]

hey I just charged a guy for a V-8 but gave him a V-6
Acceptable Anodizing flaws , or do you want to describe , just sloppy work
I wish I could get away with doing 80 % of my work the right way & to heck with the other 20%
Anno is a Science ( thats the way I see it ) Experience is the teacher , your reputation is the product you sell
At least this didn't happen to you ; http://www.automags.org/forums/showt...wpost&t=252291
BTW you can say who did the work

[Frizzle Fry]

...looks like it was poorly spraypainted.

Let us know who this was, please. Regardless of how they "make it right" or what excuse they use for the poor turnaround and bad quality of the work, people should know to avoid this joker. That's a pretty sad attempt; I did better myself with my own ghetto rigged setup when I tried my hand at anodizing, and it sure as hell didn't take 5 months... Then again, I didn't have to mail it to myself...

[Warwitch]

Every time I even hear the word "anodizing" my blood pressure spikes.

Best of luck to you bro. These guys almost never claim responsibility. If anodizing is not what they do FULL TIME, as their sole source of income, then youre probably getting a cut rate quality job.

[OPBN]

I am waiting for the individual to even answer my emails at this point. I got the final parts today, emailed him after getting some initial feedback here and waiting for his reply. I wanted to be sure my expectations for quality weren't unrealistic. I think more than a few of you may be a bit surprised as to who it is.

I can already answer the turnaround time. It was blamed on the actual anodizer getting backed up and their jobs getting put to the side. As I did mention, the person taking on the work was handling it as a middleman. Hoping he will make good and maybe shed some light on who actually did the work so that we can all stay away.

[OPBN]

hey I just charged a guy for a V-8 but gave him a V-6
Acceptable Anodizing flaws , or do you want to describe , just sloppy work
I wish I could get away with doing 80 % of my work the right way & to heck with the other 20%
Anno is a Science ( thats the way I see it ) Experience is the teacher , your reputation is the product you sell
At least this didn't happen to you ; http://www.automags.org/forums/showt...wpost&t=252291
BTW you can say who did the work

Actually, it pretty much did. I was however told from another member that this actually isnt that uncommon.

[Ratt]

If the guy who did your anno is the same guy that Mongoose uses, I would let him re-anno it (if he offers to redo it). Not only have I received new parts from him (Noxious rail body, snatch grip), I had him anodize previously-anodized parts (Intelliframe, vertical asa, trigger, RPG foregrip), and as far as I am concerned, they were all near-flawless jobs.

[Drix]

+1 to sharing who the annodizer was. Every item sent out of his shop he should be proud of, so it makes sence that he is proud of the work that he sent you as it is a representation of his quality. If that quality is not up to your par then he should swallow his pride and re-do it to your specs for customer service.

Making a post about someone who's done a shoddy job but not naming them is doing the annodizer and the paintball community a dis-service. You can explain in your post, what happened, and then later what great customer service the guy had and it would be a bonus in his pocket. To not name names just means that the next poor guy down the road to pick him might end up with the same hack job because this guy diddn't step up his work.

[C_losjoker]

can i ask, what was the reason for using a middle man? most time when using a middle man it seems that there are always more headaches then going directly to one doing the job.

and once the ano was done, were the parts shipped back to the middle man, or directly to you? if the middle man did see them and sent them on to you, without letting you know anything ahead of time, i would say this is bad on both the ano and middle man. if i was playing the role of the middle man, and though i did not do the work. i would still be pissed that this would come from the ano guy, would have contacted you and see what you wanted to do/work out. i would just feel that my name would be attached to the work, so i would want it done right.

[CatoRockwell]

I don't know if you were using mongoose. I did and they did an awesome job. Yes it took five months, but I am very happy with the end result. I bet mongoose will make it right for you if it was him. He's slow to respond to emails, but he takes care of you.

[OPBN]

1. Multiple reasons for not specifically naming the person that I sent the parts to. First, I hadn't gotten things worked out with them. Naming and shaming isn't necessarily going to help my case for getting it fixed or compensated. Also, I had more or less hoped that they would potentially come on here, see the thread and explain the situation themselves. I understand perhaps he is busy and not on the forum much, so not sure how to judge that. Mainly though, I wanted to wait until he and I had somewhat resolved the issue before posting names/outcomes.

2. The reason I used a middle man or contractor was hopefully, to avoid issues like this. After seeing multiple threads about ppor quality, long waiting periods, I thought it made more sense to use someone that is "in the business' so to speak and has a good working relationship with a specific anodizer and would insure a good outcome. Is an anodizer going to give me, someone who is sending one $150 job, the same care and attention to quality that he might with someone who is spending considerably more and a regular customer? Maybe yes, maybe no. Again though, I felt using someone with the right contacts it would tip the odds in my favor. Apparently it didn't.

3. Cato and Ratt, good for you. I have seen your thread, loved the outcome and hoped mine would come back as good as yours. It didn't. Mongoose/Christian is the person that I used. The explanation that I was given last night was that the original Anodizer that he was going to use was so backed up that he went with Plan B anodizer that he has used in the past a few times. i have mixed feelings on this, as I feel that if there was any doubt about the quality of the work that the anodizer could do, it should have been mentioned. I further feel that the flaws should have been caught prior to sending them back to me. As of last night, Mongoose has offered to either have the battery box redone, or refund my money so that I can have someone else do it. Again, I am not certain as to what to do since I do not want to wait another 5 months to get my parts back and not sure if I want to risk taking further material off of the battery box in fear that it might make the fit too loose or cause some other issues. There is also the concern that the colors might not match since Christian has stated that he will not use the same anodizer for the job.

[Mongoose]

Out of all the anno jobs/parts we have had done, this is the first mistake that was sent out to the customer.
I would like to apologize for both the delay in time and also the final product.

As many know we do not directly do the annoing....but we do take complete responsibility for any mistakes.

We have been having issues with our prime anno shop....so we setup with another that did good work.
I did not expect the work to come out sub par.

We have offered to redo or refund the parts that were poorly done.

We currently also have another anno shop that we are trying out.. Our EP bodies are being finished up there this week.

Anno is not an exact science, mistakes and errors will happen. We are using Professional Anno Shops. We will help fix this mistake and continue to strive for the highest quality our customers deserve.

Again, i'm very sorry you had a bad experience with us, we will do everything we can to correct our mistakes.

Christian

[Drix]

Thank you for sort of dropping names. Mongoose remains on the top of my choice annodizer list even though this was a foul up because of his prior reputation. I'm glad to hear it's not someone like grunt who's been fouling stuff up for months now.

[Warwitch]

Anno is not an exact science, mistakes and errors will happen.

This is what I always have a problem with. (Christian this is not in reagards to you, just anodizers ) Anodizing IS an exact science. There is just a general lack of care/quality control when it comes to the paintball industry. Time and time again I see stuff leaving these shops that is not even remotely quality oriented. And the funny thing is, RARELY do I ever see an anodized product on a shelf at Wal-Mart with poor quality. And still again, many "professional" ano places are just bathtub setups in a garage. There is very little control in these places. And thats why stuff comes out shoddy. Are they precisely regulating the chem temps? Did they do the research to find out what type of aluminum allow was used to make your marker body/parts? Probably not. So they have already set themselves up for failure.

The aerospace industry gets stuff anod all the time. Do you think they put up with the same lack of care?

Let me put it this way: go look at any random part that comes off PK Selectives line. It will be immaculate. Because they work FOR professionals and thats whats expected. PB ano guys are used to dealing with 15-25 year olds and dont really care if you dont like what you got. Unless you make a stink about it.....