Anodizing Tutorial

Thought I'd show what I have trhown together for my anodizing rig. I'd like to thank Johnny Stout and Craig Shelton for giving me a hand getting mine done. You'll need a jar, some ss heat treat wrap, some plastic canvas, power cord, ti leads, rheostat, distilled h2O, TSP, and a 4way bridge from radio shack.

Here's my knife before anodizing.


Closer shot


Torn apart ready to anodize.


Power from my outlet to my variac, variac to my 4-way bridge, and from my 4-way bridge to my anodizing leads...



Here is the bridge itself, Radio Shack won't know what you want if you take these ##'s to them, so I have a picture and "Radio Shack" part number later...

Here's the wiring setup. I'll try to get a schematic drawn and scanned in.


Here's the package from radio shack with part ## (i saved for some reason)


My jar, ground strip in jar made from ss HT foil, shield made from plastic canvas from hobby lobby, leads (one with micarta grabber)...


Distilled water and TSP. I don't know how muck I use, just know it's maybe 2 tbsp to the quart jar and each time I use it I add about a tsp more and top off with distilled h2O.


Here's probably the best tip you can get (thanks Craig)... Polish your liner edges with a buff and roughe. You want a polished surface. I buff, clean with acetone and the liner goes into a bath of plain distilled water until I get all parts cleaned up. This does not allow the air to start oxidizing your Ti. It goes straight from this bath to the TSP bath.

I also clean up around my lock so it will anodize nicely.


My rheostat stays in my drawer, just pull my leads out when I need to anodize. My shop is kinda small and counter space is limited.


Liners are picked up out of their distilled bath, outside to outside, and placed in the anodizing rig.


The plastic keeps you from hitting the other lead. With the liners submerged, I now turn on my rheostat at the lowest setting and start adding current. The liners will bubble, so I shake gently to make the bubbles rise. I raise current till I get the color I want.

That's about the color I want. Kinda blue/purple. Colors start at a straw, to a bronze, bluish, purple, etc...


Liners dried, detent ball is set, and laid out ready for assembly.


Finished knife, anodized.


Anodizing may not be right for every knife you make, and should not take away from your knife, but add to the beauty, or accent your knife. Most of mine get a straw color, some cry for something more.


I sure have enjoyed these tutorials and will keep adding them as I find things that I feel would be beneficial to making these knives. These solutions I have found or learned work for me in my shop and my techniques evolve fairly rapidly. Some of what I did on my linerlock tutorial have already changed. My ways are probably not "right", but they work until I find a better way to do them

If you run into some problems with your linerlocks, let me know and I'll get something posted here as I do them.

Excellent tutorial, Jason. I will add this to our tut list when I get a chance.

What more could a man ask from an instructor? That's excellent, Jason.
That's a good tip about using the plastic liner. First time I've seen it used.

I bought a 100v 10a bridge rectifier, since I thought it would take that to get 100v output. I see yours is 50PIV. Interesting.

Really beautiful knife, too!

Custom Made Knives
by Don Robinson
home.att.net/~don-robinson.ce/

Don, I'm pleased to see you posting here! I hope you'll hang around!

Thanks for the welcome, Don Cowles. I probably have several friends here. That was my first post. My thanks also to Jason Howell, who got me started here. I'll put up my profile and a few pictures when I get more time.

Custom Made Knives
by Don Robinson
home.att.net/~don-robinson.ce/

Jason great idea on the liner seperating the HT foil. But I ain't ever let a set of liners touch the foil while I was anodizing em, well maybe once. I wonder why I never thought of that. Don't answer that thanks fer the tip.

Forgot to mention thats a pretty good looking folder too, really like the damascus

Thanks Terry, made it myself

The plastic canvas is like 50 cents a sheet at a hobby store.

Jason,

What is the significance (if any) of the cathode being stainless steel?
Is there a reason that the cathode could not be a piece of any other metal?
Would a scrap piece of 440C work for the cathode as long as it is bigger than the piece to be anodized?
I noticed you have a strip of foil coiled around the jar from the bottom to the top; would a piece at the bottom (covered with plastic canvas covering it) perform the same?
Do you sand your titanium dipping hook between uses? It appears to be bare metal in the picture.

I appreciate your sharing of this information. Sometimes you can talk (type) your head off but a picture really clears things up for a lot of people.

My anodizer is almost complete and I will post a picture when done (if I can figure out how).

No reason it's SS, although someone might know more??? I wouldn't use carbon, just SS or Ti only. I used a strip of Ti to begin with, one strip went from top of jar to bottom and ot gave spotty results. I was making a new one to go down one side, across the bottom and up the other side so I could get 180 deg cover... I liked to lobbed a finger off bending my Ti. bled off and on for 2 days, shoulda got stitched up I guess. Anyhow, not looking to doing this again, I went to the SS HT foil on the advice of Richard Epting. This coils around the jar and my anodiziing is extremely even. I don't sand my hook between uses.

I'm with you on the pictures. You can explain all day, and I =might= get it. Draw me a picture and I get it right away.

Jason ...

Very well done!

If you have the images available that made up this tutorial, could you send them over in attachment to me? I'll help Dog get it posted to the main site, but I don't want the PhotoPoint system hosting them. You never know when they're going to start acting funny again. Something like this needs to be a solid performer over there. Based on the last ones you and Neil did , they're getting researched a lot.

You men might also mirror the actual tutorial in a locked thread, if you want to keep it concise for future reference. However, with it being hosted on the main site, the need is questionable.

Again, nice tutorial!

Alex

Could you explain the positive lead makeup. You mentioned micarta and I don't see it. I see the titanium rod thats holding the parts and tape over what I imagine are stainless, but the rest of it has me a little confused. What kind of camera did you use to make the tutorial, great pictures? Thanks.
Tom