The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Pale red maybe?

kennyc wrote:well if we are going Black

I do wonder if that was the festival Ovenpaa's daughter went to, she said AC/DC played and also Aerosmith.
I know she nearly lost her voice and hardly slept during the days it took place...ah to be young again

Caustic and Aluminium is a absolute no no. Do not put caustic any were near aluminium it will just destroy it.
Do not mix caustic with hydrochloric acid. Before you mix any more weird and wonderfull mixes in your kitchen I would ask for advice on what sort of damage it might do to the fabrick of the building. :shakeshout: :shakeshout:

It is standard practice to use a caustic mix to strip old anodising and to clean and etch the aluminium, impure grades of aluminium will darken with a smut, this is then mechanically removed with a brush in hot water and the part immersed in a nitric solution to remove the residue smuts, then washed again, always in demineralised water and finally into the anodising tank.

You do need to take care how long you leave the parts in the caustic mix and the concentration, we ran a 10% solution however you can go to 20%, time wise anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes depending on the grade of material and level of oxidisation.

Just to clarify, the only process that took place in the kitchen was the dying because it needs to be heated to 50 degrees.

We did add the desmut and the stripper to their respective tubs in the kitchen because we needed the scales to weigh the powder. Once in the tub it went straight outside to be mixed.

No fumes in the kitchen throughout the entire process. We both wore goggles and gloves whenever we handled anything.

Dogs were kept well away from everything.

Fume balls were added to the acid to keep the fumes down.

I've just been reading the actual details of the process in the SHED journal - even more to it than i'd imagined...and very impressive to do it for yourself :goodjob:

No pink in stock and these bits certainly look black to me, the picture really does not do them justice. Ignore the top left item, it is a muzzle brake.