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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - US Anodizers (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 1/28/2016 1:08:49 PM EDT
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Hey guys, do I use Type II or Type III anodizing for my retro stuff? Whats the difference? Thanks for your help |
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Hey guys, do I use Type II or Type III anodizing for my retro stuff? Whats the difference? Thanks for your help Type III is what is mostly used. According to US Anodizing, the Early Gray only comes in the Type III Hardcoat. Type II - Standard Anodizing - MIL-A-8625 This application produces a porous aluminum oxide film, that is hard, resistant to wear, and allows for greater penetration of dyes. This type of anodizing is more common, and prefer for applications requiring lighter colors. Type III—Hard Anodizing - MIL-A-8625 This application is similar to the Type II anodizing, but the film of aluminum oxide is produced at much higher voltage and cooler temperatures. The result is a film that is greater in thickness, harder, smoother, and it is more wear and corrosion resistant than the Type II anodizing. |
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Do y'all use US Anodizing cause they do the retro gray colors, I mean I shopped around locally, found a small shop that does mostly aerospace stuff, saw some Midwest industries rails also, and had them do it, they charged me $125, no tax for 12 lowers?
William Also, yes it's type III hard coat |
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Do y'all use US Anodizing cause they do the retro gray colors, I mean I shopped around locally, found a small shop that does mostly aerospace stuff, saw some Midwest industries rails also, and had them do it, they charged me $125, no tax for 12 lowers? William Also, yes it's type III hard coat did they do grey or black? can they color match? |
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Do y'all use US Anodizing cause they do the retro gray colors, I mean I shopped around locally, found a small shop that does mostly aerospace stuff, saw some Midwest industries rails also, and had them do it, they charged me $125, no tax for 12 lowers? William Also, yes it's type III hard coat When it comes to anodizing parts for retro ARs, US Anodizing is most preferred because they have the correct colors and application. They do exceptionally good work. Nodak Spud has all of their parts done by them. |
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Has anyone ever used another Anodizer with success? I know they do top notch work, but U.S. is so busy lately, and they are so expensive (when compared to other anodizers) it seems like there must be someone out there offering some "run for the money" competition? I cant even get an email reply from them. They say they are not taking in any non contract orders right now due to big commercial batches, but I've already been waiting since Thanksgiving. There must be someone else that can do the work as well, and be able to color match? This is nothing against US Anodizers, just seems they have more work than they can handle and I dont want to wait whats becoming 3 months or more to pay the $100+ per item. |
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Has anyone ever used another Anodizer with success? I know they do top notch work, but U.S. is so busy lately, and they are so expensive (when compared to other anodizers) it seems like there must be someone out there offering some "run for the money" competition? I cant even get an email reply from them. They say they are not taking in any non contract orders right now due to big commercial batches, but I've already been waiting since Thanksgiving. There must be someone else that can do the work as well, and be able to color match? This is nothing against US Anodizers, just seems they have more work than they can handle and I dont want to wait whats becoming 3 months or more to pay the $100+ per item. I was very happy with the finish of the sliprings I sent him, but it was pricey at $250 |
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They do some kind of federal standard gray and black, I didn't ask about color matching though, I can stop by ask them, they're like 5 minutes from me. They had a few different manufacturers of rails in there, it's a big shop and in a small town so the guy Tom showed the works but I wasn't able to ID all of them. From the looks of it they do mostly aircraft parts for Lockheed (Cape Canaveral) but said for about 10 years now they've been doing weapon components. He quoted me $5.12 per lower, yes, five dollars, but the minimum was $125 for a batch, and apologized that the turnaround time would be 5 days, small town.
William |
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Quoted: They do some kind of federal standard gray and black, I didn't ask about color matching though, I can stop by ask them, they're like 5 minutes from me. They had a few different manufacturers of rails in there, it's a big shop and in a small town so the guy Tom showed the works but I wasn't able to ID all of them. From the looks of it they do mostly aircraft parts for Lockheed (Cape Canaveral) but said for about 10 years now they've been doing weapon components. He quoted me $5.12 per lower, yes, five dollars, but the minimum was $125 for a batch, and apologized that the turnaround time would be 5 days, small town. William |
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Also, the guy Tom is the manager, it's not a little hole in the wall, it's a huge warehouse that does anodizing, silver and teflon plating, phosphating, etc for the space coast. Their office is filled with NASA, SpaceX, ULA, and other local manufacturers letters of thanks, and accolades.
William |
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Also, the guy Tom is the manager, it's not a little hole in the wall, it's a huge warehouse that does anodizing, silver and teflon plating, phosphating, etc for the space coast. Their office is filled with NASA, SpaceX, ULA, and other local manufacturers letters of thanks, and accolades. William Verrrrrrrrrrry interesting |
| I have been wondering about this for a good while now, why there isn't any other competition out there and everyone recommends Us Anodizing. I know they have to do great work, but the prices are just crazy. You can buy a brand new retro upper for the same price it costs to have one anodized from there. I am not running them down either, they obviously do a lot of business and if they are the only ones available I will probably send some 80% lowers to him when I get to building them. But if there is anyone else out there for a cheaper price it would be great to know. When you do a few builds that is a lot of extra money, especially if this other place is only charging $5 a lower! I could see making it a minimum of $100-150 order or something and only charging 25-50 a receiver - that just seems so much more reasonable to me for such a small piece. If you are doing a large batch of receivers I just don't see how it could cost you a fraction of the $100-150 price per receiver. I understand mark up and making money for your services but the price difference between $5 and $100-150 is a lot, and I doubt that company that only charges $5 is doing it for free either. |
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Hey my lowers aren't back yet but this is their website, it's nothing fancy but feel free to give them a call, they're friendly.
http://www.synergymetalfinishing.com/index.html William |
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Hey my lowers aren't back yet but this is their website, it's nothing fancy but feel free to give them a call, they're friendly. http://www.synergymetalfinishing.com/index.html William bummer.......no greys |
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competition is always good for the customer i used brownells GUNKOTE,....but always wanted to do it right years ago, i had a preban bushmaster that was purple. i called around, and didn't find many deals on anodizing ...but maybe now there's something out there GUNKOTE 
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/derek45/media/retro%20AR15%20pics/IMGP6005.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/derek45/retro%20AR15%20pics/IMGP6005.jpg</a> purple dinosaur gun <a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/derek45/media/AR/caf9.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/derek45/AR/caf9.jpg</a> Wow thats a early bushmaster |
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My understanding is that the early grey was simply because with the technology at the time, they were unable to achieve a darker black color in hardcoat anodizing.
So it's a backwards step for a modern finisher to recreate that look. I have at least one, maybe 3 or 4 that I would have done at a more reasonable price. US Anodizing has basically said no small jobs since SH so I haven't even bothered. |
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I've just contacted Tom Gibbins & Ken Ellis at Synergy Metal Finishing to ask if they would consider doing the two needed shades of Gray. If they are interested I ask them to stop by this thread and let all of us tell them what's needed, and answer any questions they may have as well. Ball's in their court. I can only hope that since US Anodizers are so busy with contract work, perhaps we've found a secondary finisher to help us out. Keep an eye posted here for Tom or Kens participation. |
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Quoted: 37thGuy, Just got an email like 10 minutes ago from Victor, I emailed yesterday. He may be playing catchup on email. After all, I'm trying to give them almost $1k in work. Maybe that's chump change to them, with all their big contracts. Hope they don't forget us little guys.  |
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Thanks for doing the legwork for us! If it works out we owe you one  Quoted:
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Ken just contacted me and said they'll get back with me. Damn! This could really be something!  Thanks for doing the legwork for us! If it works out we owe you one Yeah I'm sorry for not running down there, I'm in school and have been pretty loaded down this semester. By bad guys, hopefully y'all emails will get the results we're all hoping for. William |
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I am in no way complaining about their work. I also realize that good work doesn't come cheap. Just have to believe there is competition out there? The only way you will get a good gray anodizing on 7075 is with Victor. Nobody I've talked to has a standard color in that range. It would require a batch of custom mixed dye and a minimum production run of 500-1000 parts. (If they can figure out the dye) And the dye only lasts about one month without maintenance. 6061 can be done in a "natural" hardcoat (no dye) and it comes out charcoal gray. |
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I had US do a lower for my M16A1 parts kit in early gray. Came in as light grey as the background of this forum. It was very light in color though this pic doesn't show it well. http://i.imgur.com/V4qy2sI.jpg Bought a Nodak in XM Gray and it's pretty close. http://i.imgur.com/nOzFXIs.jpg?1 
Maybe their color chart is off. Have you tried oiling the lower? Mine always look like that light gray until i put a few coats of CLP, and then they match perfectly. |
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Yeah I get that victor does good work but he is pretty pricey. Most local shops are way cheaper. But, Do they have an FFL? Do they take work from individuals? Do they have the skills to strip and re-anodize parts without wrecking them? Do they have the right color dye? When somebody steps up and can do those things you guys will flock to that company.
And the only way that will happen is if members go out and convince anodizing companies that a small niche market needs them. |
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Quoted: But, Do they have an FFL? Do they take work from individuals? Do they have the skills to strip and re-anodize parts without wrecking them? Do they have the right color dye? When somebody steps up and can do those things you guys will flock to that company. And the only way that will happen is if members go out and convince anodizing companies that a small niche market needs them. Quoted: Quoted: Yeah I get that victor does good work but he is pretty pricey. Most local shops are way cheaper. But, Do they have an FFL? Do they take work from individuals? Do they have the skills to strip and re-anodize parts without wrecking them? Do they have the right color dye? When somebody steps up and can do those things you guys will flock to that company. And the only way that will happen is if members go out and convince anodizing companies that a small niche market needs them. Thanks Mike, and all very good points. And true. I went ahead and sent my pile of receivers to Victor yesterday. Gritted my teeth while writing the check, BUT.... I know that when they return they will be perfect and worth the 4-5 month wait. I know that anodizing is much more work than Parkerizing, but I hope we can find a good back up when US gets busy with their contracts. |
| A technical question since I don't know the details. Is it really that much of a stretch to be able to anodize things the way they were done in the 60s? Is the process Colt used back then a secret? Is the process today different enough to make replicating the old process unfeasible? |
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Quoted: A technical question since I don't know the details. Is it really that much of a stretch to be able to anodize things the way they were done in the 60s? Is the process Colt used back then a secret? Is the process today different enough to make replicating the old process unfeasible? excuse me while i whip out the DDT.
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i'ma gonna guess some ingredient or procedure from the '60's has been deemed hazardous to all living things by Big Daddy gov. excuse me while i whip out the DDT. Yeah, I can only imagine the headaches involved with any commercial operation that uses caustic lyes and various acids. I had a side business in the late seventies that used nitric acid. I can't imagine what would be involved with today's EPA . Add in the impatience of the average customer today and an anodizing business should be great fun. Quoted:
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A technical question since I don't know the details. Is it really that much of a stretch to be able to anodize things the way they were done in the 60s? Is the process Colt used back then a secret? Is the process today different enough to make replicating the old process unfeasible? excuse me while i whip out the DDT. Yeah, I can only imagine the headaches involved with any commercial operation that uses caustic lyes and various acids. I had a side business in the late seventies that used nitric acid. I can't imagine what would be involved with today's EPA . Add in the impatience of the average customer today and an anodizing business should be great fun. |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - US Anodizers (Page 1 of 2)
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