Thanks again guys, the set up I'm using is starting to give better results - with less surprises
Thanks for all this, Looks pretty good from the pictures. At minimum you've got it where it will protect the raw aluminum which is the point of the process,hope to see you hanging a few fish soon!
Thanks Sheridan, being able to apply a convienient protective coating on raw aluminium is what got me started on this. The color possibilities didn't really interest me that much - when given a choice of color by custom part suppliers like Tom I often choose silver for practical reasons like scratches don't show as much and it matches any color. I think for a novice like me, adding color and getting the dying right is a way of telling if the anodizing is working. Having said that, it's hard not to notice some of the cool effects people get with 'splash', 'fade in' and 'masking' techniques and I can see myself doing a few party tricks with some pieces. Aside from the red-black fade in I attempted, I had a quick attempt at masking during one of the recent trials. The concept is pretty simple and there is a few ways to do it, one is to dye the entire piece the color you want the text or graphics to be then mask the design with stickers or rubber cement (low strength so it's easier to remove). Next bleach the unmasked area with straight household bleach, rinse and then dye the background color. Seal as normal before removing the stickers or rubber cement then seal again for the area under the mask. My attempt was with my new black dye, it took over 5 min to bleach the black and the unsealed anodize came off with it leaving the black graphics surounded by raw aluminium.

The online videos I've seen take a few seconds to bleach the colors

Back to the real stuff, Ted (Maxed Out) offered to send a few of his raw handle arms to experiment on - when I accepted his generous offer he mentioned he threw a 'few' other parts in the box;

Thanks Ted! That will keep me busy with a few projects. The first trials with the new black dye were pretty good so I decided to try a 2/0 and 4/0 Ted handle arm, aiming for 1 MIL at 6ASF. The result was the best yet, the finish and color were good. The reccessed area had a very slight irridescence that was not obvious but was there;



As I've mentioned, it's difficult to photograph black - I tried a lot of angles but couldn't capture the irridescence. I've since stripped them and tried again (1 MIL @ 7.5 ASF) I'll get photos in the daylight but the fine finish on the raw handles degraded a bit with the stripping and I didn't re-polish them but the anodize looks good.
I've got a few more colors of anodizing dye from caswell so I'll be playing with them at some stage after I wrap up some loose projects like the XN Cortez squidder frame and U/H surfmaster 100.
Mike