How to remove anno?

[VFX_Fenix]

haha, I forgot about that in Fight Club.

But I do work in a chemistry stockroom and it's part of my job to handle this stuff on a daily basis both in pure solid and solution form. Believe me, I've lost a few lab coats and aprons to this stuff. The Red Devil isn't exactly the highest quality NaOH, but it's certainly good enough to turn your average fleshy critter into soap before you could retieve it and clean it off from a saturated solution (no more solid will disolve into the solution).

[magmonkey]

home anodizing a walk through from someone who has been a anodizer

what you need

all tanks need air agitation and heaters

a hot soap tank to remove light oils
3-5 mins @ 120 degrees
pull the parts and rinse them
hold the parts above the rinse tank and look for water break (you will see an uneven drying pattern) if waterbreak is present re soap

after this step you cannot touch the parts or you will re contaminate them

rinse freash cold water

if you are thinking about self anodizing it your setup should already have a caustic etch tank to clean the parts before anodize


you can use this for etching back old anodize
however be careful not to over etch your parts or you will end up with junk

a clean water rinse

rinse in cold fresh water for 1-2 mins making sure all etch/nitric de smut has been removed


a nitric acid de smutter

etching your parts will bring impurities to the aluminums surface as smut this needs to be removed
30 seonds to 2 mins in a nitric de smut bath will do it depending on the nitric concentration

if the parts are not spotless you will see ever impurtity through the anodic film
and you will have a crappy anodizing job

you can use the same rinse tank from the caustic


after your parts are clean

anodize tank

given you have proper chem. content
for color anodizing on 6061 generly you should try to hold 16-18 volts for 22-25 minutes
keep a tank temp of 70-72 degrees

rinse again NOT THE SAME RINSE

1-2 minutes fresh COLD water (cold is very important as hot water will seal your anodizing)
agitate and be sure to rinse all holes to aviod sulfuric leak out.

if the parts have not been rinsed you will have a crappy anodizing job


if you have gotten this far without problems you can dye and seal
but I have to get to work so that can come later