Anodizing?
 

I have this idea of sandblasting and then anodizing the controls of an M4 (fire selector, trigger, pins) to a colour ie blue or gold.
I think it would look pretty damn sick. Like a professional level R/C car except on your gun.

Found this place right in markham http://www.dependableanodizing.ca/

Going to find out more about cost and whether theyd even do such a small order.

opinions?

I don't think steel parts anodizes, you need to do some kind of coating or plating.

oh...shit i didnt think of that....

good point....

This guy does a lot of small orders for the local mazdaspeed3 performance community (torontomazda3.ca)... http://www.quyscoating.com/

Really good guy. I'm sure he'd take care of you. PM me for more info.

Can't anodize steel, but there's alternative platings. IIRC "zinc bronze" passive chromate plating should give a nice ruddy gold hue on bead-blasted steel.

Just make sure its the correct kind of metal, there was recently a user on ASC who had his m4 receiver destroyed in some form of incident.

Yeah, the equivalent anodizing for steel would be rust :P. Anodizing is like dying the oxide layer of Aluminum, and the oxide of steel is... well yeah :P

yea controls of gun I was thinking of doing it to are steel apparently...(WE M4)

Im going for the aluminum anodized look....

http://www.rcinfos.com/2003/2003_11_...s/TRF415_4.jpg

powdercoat isnt exactly what im going for and I'd probably just prime and rattlecan it in that case...

thanks for the info

haha... poor SR-25... :(

I believe that user was ujiro. Be very careful.

Did he ever post pictures of the remains? :p

No he didn't actually. I'm surprised about that. I followed the thread for a while, but no pics ever showed up.

cuz there was nothing left to take pictures off... XD

if you try to anodize anything that is not aluminum it will most likely melt, i can confirm and by reading this thread, any steel stainless or mild which ever kind/quality, will melt and dissolve in the bath that is used to anodize/plate the metal, so really either do a metal plate not anodize, or just find a way to paint it, its not that it won't look cool, its just you lose your pieces and money
(i know this from working in a factory that does anodization, we put steel screws in to test it, there was nothing left not even in the bottom of the bath)

well I guess my only option now is to get aluminum after market parts or cnc cut my own ....T_T

it wont actually melt, its because the solutions used to anodize are acid solutions, and any other metal will/could actually disolve in it (like potmetal...)

But they are always alternate solutions for that, you could always call the anodizing shop and ask if he can anodize steel..... ;)

You can oxidize steel to several colours (not stainless steel), but the array of options is limited. Besides plating, the only other thing you can really do is just a black oxide finish. It won't be shiny in any way.

If you want a wide range of colour options with varying gradients, go with aluminum. All it takes is acid, electricity, and some food colouring. It's not so easy with steel.