Finally found a quiet, rainy few days to get over the hump and dig into home brew Anno. Its been one of those constant itches for quite awhile now and I had finally put together all the pieces and parts to get started, along with an arsenal of Hodge podge markers to hone my skills on. posting my observations, tips and progress here. Get some drain cleaner and follow along!
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Last edited by Drcemento; 01-04-2026, 10:42 PM. -
Day 1...
stripped an old PGP handle and gas through, and cut some 6061 plates from the metal guy next door to practice on... many things went sideways and lots was learned, but in the end I got some annoed parts and a new hobby that I needed like a bad cold!
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Nice job! I like To annodize myself, but the amount of time is the hardest part. Your first pices came out really nice.Last edited by Melrosejedi; 01-05-2026, 07:53 AM.Comment
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Day 2... came in amped up to have another go. Grabbed a beat up automag vertical ASA and rail, and a Big finned TASO expansion chamber to strip and clean up. had good success with that, but no success with getting power run through the anno bath, and had to give up in frustration. a stiff drink and a post here and I was hopeful i could get things going again on day 3Last edited by Drcemento; 01-04-2026, 10:46 PM.Comment
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Excited to see where this heads.BeardedWorks.com (Your Inception Designs and Shocktech Dealer)
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I buy Automags and Mag Parts also.Comment
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Day 3 - I finally settled on an objective for my first go around - old school-ish splash mag rail, asa, gas through and Barrel. first I needed to get electricity flowing through my bath though. I took a different approach to wiring up the parts. Rather than just looping and twisting them through any hole I could find I folded the end of the wire back on itself a bunch of times until it made a lump big enough to jam in a threaded hole - this was pretty easy to do, and when I got everything in the bath I finally got the constant current light to stay on! I was a happy man coming home with this! since I had done the Gas through the day before, color matching quickly came to the forefront as a big challenge. I was also quickly learing about the relationship between a good ano and color density and how fast the dye takes. This particular mag also sports a black Patinaed stainless body and valve - something I've been working on awhile now.
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Day 4: Armed with some new, thicker titanium wire and much nicer banana plugs I was hopeful I could get more consistent and better Ano. I had also decided to start over on the mag and get a barrel in the mix to try and achieve my goal. The thicker wire and better plugs made a huge difference - no more smoking red hot thin wires and occasional current drop offs. I added blue into the mix and went for a bit of an oddball splash that came to me late the night before. Color consistency once again kicked me in the butt despite dipping everything in the dye in one batch - a few seconds can make a big difference in the tone of the blue, so next time its clear I need to set a timer. In all its pretty kick ass - kinda like having a superpower after reading about it for so long. Its time to wrap it up for a couple days and get back to reality. Planning to start over and go until i get that mag nailed.
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That’s awesome dude! Totally like a super power! Looks great.Comment
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Nice job! Love that blue splash. I would leave that and find some new parts to do.
What are some of the issues you can run into anodizing the same parts over and over. Don’t it effect tolerances? Or is that just from the stripping process. I have seen some parts that start to pit.Comment
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I've read the same - I think it could be true in industry with extremely tight tolerances, but I'm not seeing any obvious signs of degradation having cycled some of those parts 3 times already. in theory you are building an anno and dye layer, then stripping it away each time. done equally they should kind of balance themselves...? At one point the ASA did feel a little rough and looked like it was bead blasted- a couple passes with 400 and 600 grit brought it right back. not sure what it was from. Kind of another reason I want to strip and re-try - what does happen when you do it allot? I foresee needing to re-do things a couple times early on before I get it right, so what happens when you strip and start over is important to me.
One thing that's been interesting is stripping parts done by others- that AA barrel you see - I was almost thinking it was powder coated at first, and when the lye finally broke down the dye it was incredibly thick - almost like paint. given what I've seen is that a good thing?
And there is no way I'm living with that color difference in the blue! looks terrible to me and not some thing I can live with.Comment
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Can we get pictures of your setups. I've also been wanting to try my hand at anodizing. Thanks for posting.Comment
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That’s awesome!Comment
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Very nice.
Once you get the recipe worked out, make sure you use a sealer to set the dye. I have zero firsthand knowledge, but have seen some nice jobs that faded quickly, and assume it's sweat and wear pulling the dye back out.
I think nickel acetate is the go-to for most, but 2024 does better with toxic chromium- based solutions.Feedback
www.PhrameworkDesigns.com < Nelspot, Sterling, and Phantom parts, plus the occasional big project.Comment
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Very nice! Tom Kaye once told me that Blue is the hardest color to work with. Hard to match consistently. The first Xmags were blue and the color was iffy on some parts.Comment
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What would you say is the bare minimum equipment to be able to do this?Comment
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