Kazaganthi
Member
Greetings all. I hope this is the right place to post this, as I am brand new to these forums and this is my first post.
My question is as the title suggests - I have never anodized titanium before but I have done lots of research and feel as if I understand the process fairly well. I have purchased a 120 v power supply for the job, and I am in the process of acquiring the rest of the tools and chemicals needed.
What I'm having far less success with is finding a definitive guide to "prepping" the titanium for anodizing, specifically polishing/buffing the surface. I've owned my OmniVap for about 2 months and have dropped it a few times - suffice to say the surface has a few light scratches here and there but nothing major. Still, if I'm going to do this, I would like to have the best possible outcome and that means getting the surface nice and scratch-free; Maybe just restoring the finish to original quality, or polishing the whole thing to a mirror finish - what I've read/watched suggests that the finish of the metal (matte, brushed, mirror etc..) drastically affects the look of the color that is expressed at any particular voltage.
I've found plenty of guides for general titanium polishing/sanding and most seem to suggest a series of sandings with successively higher grit levels (200, 800, 2000) while using a series of metal polishes of heavy/light composition and then finishing with some sort of buffing pad and compound. That could be an insane amount of overkill for the Omni - but since all the guides I read were for general titanium, I'm not sure if it's right to assume that the same technique would be applicable to the Omni.
In trying not to overthink this (too late) but I'm hoping someone has some personal experience with prepping the omni for the anodizing treatment. Any guides or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
My question is as the title suggests - I have never anodized titanium before but I have done lots of research and feel as if I understand the process fairly well. I have purchased a 120 v power supply for the job, and I am in the process of acquiring the rest of the tools and chemicals needed.
What I'm having far less success with is finding a definitive guide to "prepping" the titanium for anodizing, specifically polishing/buffing the surface. I've owned my OmniVap for about 2 months and have dropped it a few times - suffice to say the surface has a few light scratches here and there but nothing major. Still, if I'm going to do this, I would like to have the best possible outcome and that means getting the surface nice and scratch-free; Maybe just restoring the finish to original quality, or polishing the whole thing to a mirror finish - what I've read/watched suggests that the finish of the metal (matte, brushed, mirror etc..) drastically affects the look of the color that is expressed at any particular voltage.
I've found plenty of guides for general titanium polishing/sanding and most seem to suggest a series of sandings with successively higher grit levels (200, 800, 2000) while using a series of metal polishes of heavy/light composition and then finishing with some sort of buffing pad and compound. That could be an insane amount of overkill for the Omni - but since all the guides I read were for general titanium, I'm not sure if it's right to assume that the same technique would be applicable to the Omni.
In trying not to overthink this (too late) but I'm hoping someone has some personal experience with prepping the omni for the anodizing treatment. Any guides or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks