Coloured washers

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.

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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.

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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.

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Then pulled them out, then put straight into boiling water to seal the process.

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And here's how they turned out:

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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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Nope they are around £1 each as I said. so if you want 50 that's gunna cost you £50 which is already double it would cost you to do it like this, Plus once you have the equipment, it won't cost you anything else to make more or anodise anything else for that mater, just the cost of the material your trying to anodise.
 
Nice idea but at least the ones you buy the quality is spot on.

That is very true. Hopefully I can get the quality better, its just trial and error. But this way its away some one could do it if they simply cant afford to spend £1 per washer, or don't care about being almost perfect or enjoy to do as much as they can, them selves. It works.
Id say tho, as long as the circumference face and the forward facing, side are good enough, as those are usually the only sides you see, Its acceptable enough I guess.

What part of the washers will you see ?
sorry really wondering that...
"The circumference face and the forward facing, side" usually

Here's a quick look what they look like for the PCI plates
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Aaa like that :cool:

Even just those two alone, add quite a bit to the aesthetics to the case IMO. A full set would really set off the inside of the case.
If you have seen TTL's Orca videos, his red ones do add that littlebut that makes quite a big difference. Thus where I got the idea from
 
interesting little project, GL getting your methods (and results :p) sorted

btw, if you get this going nicely, you should have a chat with the fella doing the hulk build... these would be mean in there
 
interesting little project, GL getting your methods (and results :p) sorted

btw, if you get this going nicely, you should have a chat with the fella doing the hulk build... these would be mean in there

Thanks for the comment :)

I don't currently have any green dye, but if I do improve the process (and results :) ), its certainly something I could do.
I could even provide a cheap anodising service for small items (I don't have a big enough tank at the moment to do case sized items, not that an old water header tank couldn't fix), or cheaper coloured washers.
 
For me it was worth the money to save the hassle and extra expense buying kit Id never use again. And the quality is tip top.

Order.
Next day - arrive.
Simples!
 
Thanks for the comment :)

I don't currently have any green dye, but if I do improve the process (and results :) ), its certainly something I could do.
I could even provide a cheap anodising service for small items (I don't have a big enough tank at the moment to do case sized items, not that an old water header tank couldn't fix), or cheaper coloured washers.

wasn't meaning to dye them green, the purple ones would be an awesome little accent in the hulk build. the hulk (comics anyway) typically had purple shorts remember... green and purple are his colours :p
 
wasn't meaning to dye them green, the purple ones would be an awesome little accent in the hulk build. the hulk (comics anyway) typically had purple shorts remember... green and purple are his colours :p

Ahh yes, that's true, I dint think. That would be quite nice i would imagine

I admire your ingenuity but i wouldnt want the hassle of that.
Online shopping is truly FTW.

Thanks. But as I said, if you cant afford to spend £1 per washer, its a alternative :)
 
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