Current Anodizer(s)?

[Sottyman]

Hey guys,

Got some projects coming up, and was wondering who's still doing a great job anodizing. Will need a few sets of some parts/frames done in dust black and an entire gun in a few (solid) colors. Can you let me know recommendation(s)? Thanks!

-Mike

[iamthelazerviking]

https://pctanodizing.com/

[latches109]

3 month lead time

[fullofpaint]

Caustic, Arc, Precision Color, and Aesthetic are the four big ano houses I'd say. All are doing manufacturer or large custom store runs.

Caustic is the king. Pricey but his work is just out of the park good.

Arc is the best balance between price and art IMO. A little cheaper than Caustic and IMO has the best acid washes of anyone. They do all the FreeFlow stuff

Never used Precision directly but they do all the Inception stuff and it looks great. Great solid colors, but I think their pattern stuff always feels a bit corporate and samey though.

Aesthetic always feels like the most willing to go do weird stuff and has been the most responsive in terms of discussing ideas. They do a lot of ANS's custom guns.

For what you want I'd probably go Arc or Precision, no need to pay a premium for dust black.

[ChuckLove]

I've recently used Ruckus Anodizing and he did a great job. The turn around was about two weeks.

[Psycho91]

What did this cost, was this the only part you got done

[Ecapnation]

Blizzard Anno has always done me great!

[Chuck E Ducky]

My last Ano project was done by Blizzard and they did a great job.

[Ecapnation]

Yeah he always nails it ...

He has done two camo jobs for me, spatter and woodland style, a split job of dust black and bright dip green on a two face shocktech build. I also chose him for my freeflow and he nailed highlighter yellow

[shooter311]

I have a project right now with Blizzard. He was supposed to ano match a body kit he did a while ago. Due to him changing products he inevitably couldn't get the match right, so he reached out and offered to just ano everything over again so it all matched at no higher cost to me. He also threw in the extra parts (pump kit, etc.) I didn't plan on having ano'd but was in the package I sent him as he is sending it to CockerTop when I am done. So far he has been great. It has been like six months he has had the project though, he seems busy!


I don't know how you feel about Cerakote, but I have had several marker's coated by Barefoot Custom Coatings (they can do all kinds of crazy chameleon effects), and absolutely love all of them. I am planning on dropping off some random parts needing a fresh coating, and just get a simple black coating. It is so much cheaper, and adding parts is significantly less than just doing small batches. I was thinking of opening it up to have people send me their parts who want a simple dust black coating and just letting Barefoot do a huge lot of parts, so it would be dirt cheap for us. I know I contacted anodizers about doing a simple black on a few parts and it was super expensive. If you would be interested in throwing parts in the lot (and anyone else) let me know and I'll get a thread together and contact Barefoot and see how prices would work.

Here is a Micromag Barefoot did for me, it color shifts from Forest Green to Purple, he also figured out how to do plastics and soft plastics as well: https://photos.app.goo.gl/VLYCCETt8ejnxNij7

[zinger565]

Oooh, I have a pair of eggy shells that would look great in dust black.

[automeister]

This is a great thread. Thank you!

[Chuck E Ducky]

My KCPS Scout Blizzard did.

[Impactfour]

I think I've said it before about this one, but hot damn! How do the scouts shoot? I love the streamlined aspect of them.

[Chuck E Ducky]

It’s an unregulated sniper. So it’s not a phantom but shoots well and it’s super smooth.

[wthomas333]

I went with Blizzard for my first Semi project. But he messed the fade up and instead of doing a pink to purple to blue, it just turned out to be a pink to blue. While the gun looked good, it wasn’t the recreation of the old PTP pattern I asked for. On top of that I was told 8-10 weeks, I didn’t get the gun back for 7 months. I sold that gun and ended up getting another one done by Arc.
Since then I have gone to Arc for all my projects and he has done a great job, has more affordable prices, and his timelines have been pretty much spot on.

[Magmoormaster]

It seems Blizzard has trouble with purple. I had him do a galaxy ano on my spine autococker, supposed to be blue and purple nebulas. It looks great, but there's really no purple on it. Doesn't really bother me, it looks great regardless.

IIRC, I got a quote from Arc for the same job. I think it was the same price but with a longer lead time, so I went with Blizzard. Who was delayed by several months lol.

[ketzer7]

I used Caustic last year to re-ano a CCM T2, and he did an amazing job on it. Looked like it was brand new again. It was very pricey though, but that was also a function of how many small parts the T2 broke down into (I think I had ~26 parts total to be done). I forget how long it took to complete, but I would say it was at least 6 weeks before I heard from him that it was done. I'd definitely use him again in the future.

Just this past week, I got a quote from Precision Color for 6 parts to be matched with an S6 in plain dust black. They quoted me $140, and the invoice said the lead time could be up to 8 weeks, so I don't know yet. I shipped the parts off last Saturday, so we'll see. Mozak highly recommended them so I figured I would give them a try. Their quoting and payment process is very streamlined.

I've got another project I'm planning on sending to Arc pretty soon to get done, but that's mainly because they offer laser services now as well and I need that done to the body.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the places mentioned in this thread.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Honestly if you just doing solid colors Precision dose really nice clean work they are fast and reasonably priced.

[flyweightnate]

For solid colors, a local shop can frequently do a whole batch for about $75. More if they need to polish or blast it for you.

[Psycho91]

I've been talking to annodizers for a week to 2 weeks now, I'm going with armored anodizing just cause I'm cheap and he's willing to hook me up with an anodizers special, but he has been telling me $125 for main bodies and $25 per part after even for simple patterns, but that could be just my quote(I AM NOT TRYING TO PUT WORDS IN ANYONES MOUTH OR SAY THAT THATS WHAT HE WILL CHARGE YOU, just covering my own ass and his lol) says it includes finishing of parts as well, some of my parts are raw straight off the mill, blizzard wanted to charge me $250 for a body and frame including finishing work, arc quoted me around the same price as armored, asked for a simple pattern and got quoted $345 for a full marker 13-15 pieces for a simple pattern in a dust finish by arc as well, haven't really heard much from the rest, never heard a thing from caustic but can say from looking at their work on FB they are top notch


Rule of thumb...ano isnt cheap unless going with a small business and single colors seems like gloss finishes cost more

[Chuck E Ducky]

Gloss cost more due to the labor required to get the finish. Dust can be blasted smooth after machine chatter is cleaned up. Polishing requires a lot of manual labor. Final product is all in the prep work. Any flaw will be exacerbated after Ano. There’s gloss and then there’s caustic’s gloss. There gloss finishes are 2nd to none but you will pay and you will wait your turn.

[Psycho91]

Yeah I know all that, I don't have caustic money lol, you pay for good work, good work is neither cheap nor fast, their work is just so nice, I like arcs work to

[Sottyman]

Man, thanks everyone for the input! I somehow am finding myself spiraling out of control. I now have three Autococker projects. Two of them just need some parts anodized dust black, and the final one is a full ground-up build and will most likely have two solid colors. Seems like some familiar names are still alive and well, so glad to know I have options!

[M98punk]

Precision Color Techniques are really top notch! They did my mag body and a few parts flat black to match the rest of the build and the whole process was flawless