Relative newbie here looking for some advice.
I have a pretty good 5 gallon rectangular bucket system that is all home built. I built my own heaters, thermostat wells, ano tank cooler and have had fairly good success with clear anodize on small parts. Lots of tanks with several triple rinses.
I am using titanium racking parts from servi-sure which work great. My temperature control is an issue since I went with
water heater thermostats in submerged rectangular tubing wells. Thought it was a cheaper way to go, but only controls within
about 15 degrees.
Anyway, don’t want to get too long winded I am looking to do a product that will require matching colors from one batch to the
next. I started with caswell grey NLN and grey BL with lots of trouble controlling colors. Read some more and went to a black thinking that would be more consistent. The first black parts I did came out the blue/grey I originally wanted. So I think just getting a very consistent process control is my problem. But does anyone have a recommendation for the easiest color to match from one batch to another?
Second question is related and has more to do with ano bath temperature. I did two matching machined 6061 idler pulleys last night racked together. 114.36 sq inches per the pair. Ano bath temp at 60 degrees. Astron 50 amp pwr supply, 15 volts and 9to 9.5 amps for 60 minutes. Current stayed constant and the temp gained maybe 1 degree with the cooler running. Black dye heated to 140 deg for 30 minutes and mid temp nickel seal at about 170 deg. for 30 minutes. Color came out a deep fairly dark navy blue.
I was trying to get as hard a coating as possible. Is the lack of deeper black color due to smaller pore size and a harder coating, which I was trying for, Or lack of pore depth due to the colder ano bath temp. Any expert or experienced opinions appreciated!
I have finally been able to get a good black with 70 plus degree bath temps, so I do know that the colder ano temp is not going to work for good colors.