Shiinsuh
New member
Cant see another place to put this thread, please move if a move suitable place for it.
Ok so TTL recently talked about using coloured washers, in his recent videos and I thought something like that would look pretty nice in my rig. But at £1 a pop, thats very expensive. While steel washers are cheaper, as TTL said they would rust, and a los it just paint anyway. SO i thought of using coloured anodised aluminium washers, checking on ebay, i found them to be the same price as stainless steel ones.
So what better way to make coloured washers, other then painting them. Anodise your own. So I'm gunna have at that.
So I got my self a hand full of aluminium M4 and M3 washers from ebay £2 for 50
I already had some blue anodising dye, but i wanted them purple, is I orded some violet dye too, and already had everything else needed.
So here's my first attempt and the process:
Firstly, washes need stripping of their clear anodising with sodium hydroxide, if they even had it. But i would imaged so. Wrapped aluminum wire around each washer individuality to suspend them, and also make the connectivity so the washers became part of the anode.
After that, they need a rinse, then off into the sulphuric acid bath. Made up of around 12.5% concentration. Lead is used as the cathode (negative terminal) And then the washers are suspended into the bath as the anode (positive terminal) Then the power was cranked up. Its all just trial and error so i set out to give it a constant current of 1amp, manually increasing the voltage as the current went down. To keep the current at 1 amp, till the power supply was maxed out at 30v. (this took about 40 minuets) I do have a digital power supply with automatic consent current, but only goes upto 20v.
After that I gave them a few quick dips in water to rinse off acid, then put them into the Dye bath for around 25 minuets.
Then pulled them out, then put straight into boiling water to seal the process.
And here's how they turned out:
As you can see, not bad for first attempt but some bugs to iron out. One row of the washers dint even make contact at all, so i left those out of the picture. As you can see only 3 made it out in the end. The rest obviously din't get a good enough connection with the supporting wire, to let current pass through them.
Its a starting point tho. Some more trial and error should bring up much better results. So i will keep you posted on it.
If i can refine the process, will be a much more viable option then £1 for a single washer. Plus the fun and satisfaction of doing it my self.
And hopefully, might give some of you peeps the idea / knowledge to do this your self
Ok so TTL recently talked about using coloured washers, in his recent videos and I thought something like that would look pretty nice in my rig. But at £1 a pop, thats very expensive. While steel washers are cheaper, as TTL said they would rust, and a los it just paint anyway. SO i thought of using coloured anodised aluminium washers, checking on ebay, i found them to be the same price as stainless steel ones.
So what better way to make coloured washers, other then painting them. Anodise your own. So I'm gunna have at that.
So I got my self a hand full of aluminium M4 and M3 washers from ebay £2 for 50
I already had some blue anodising dye, but i wanted them purple, is I orded some violet dye too, and already had everything else needed.
So here's my first attempt and the process:
Firstly, washes need stripping of their clear anodising with sodium hydroxide, if they even had it. But i would imaged so. Wrapped aluminum wire around each washer individuality to suspend them, and also make the connectivity so the washers became part of the anode.
After that, they need a rinse, then off into the sulphuric acid bath. Made up of around 12.5% concentration. Lead is used as the cathode (negative terminal) And then the washers are suspended into the bath as the anode (positive terminal) Then the power was cranked up. Its all just trial and error so i set out to give it a constant current of 1amp, manually increasing the voltage as the current went down. To keep the current at 1 amp, till the power supply was maxed out at 30v. (this took about 40 minuets) I do have a digital power supply with automatic consent current, but only goes upto 20v.
After that I gave them a few quick dips in water to rinse off acid, then put them into the Dye bath for around 25 minuets.
Then pulled them out, then put straight into boiling water to seal the process.
And here's how they turned out:
As you can see, not bad for first attempt but some bugs to iron out. One row of the washers dint even make contact at all, so i left those out of the picture. As you can see only 3 made it out in the end. The rest obviously din't get a good enough connection with the supporting wire, to let current pass through them.
Its a starting point tho. Some more trial and error should bring up much better results. So i will keep you posted on it.
If i can refine the process, will be a much more viable option then £1 for a single washer. Plus the fun and satisfaction of doing it my self.
And hopefully, might give some of you peeps the idea / knowledge to do this your self
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