Anodizing machines let you create custom niobium and titanium jewelry for your clients, giving them the colors and finishes they want in the biocompatible metals they need. Discover what an anodizing machine can do for your business, and make your piercing shop the ultimate destination for unique, customized body jewelry.
With competitive price and timely delivery, Ruisite sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.
For anodizing beginners, we recommend starting with our Titanium Anodizing Kit, which comes with everything you need to get started and detailed instructions for using the machine and achieving different colors.
Anodization is an electrolytic passivation process that transforms metal surfaces, commonly used in body jewelry such as niobium and titanium, into durable, corrosion-resistant works of art with an anodic oxide finish. In other words, anodizing lets you change the color and increase the durability of your titanium and niobium body jewelry. Other materials often associated with anodizing include aluminum, titanium, niobium, magnesium, zinc, hafnium, and tantalum. This transformative process involves immersing the metal into an acid electrolyte bath and passing an electric current through the medium.
Anodizers play a pivotal role in the piercing, dental, and medical industries. The dental and medical sectors use anodizers to refine metal tools and instruments, ensuring the highest standards of quality and functionality. In the piercing industry, anodizing titanium and niobium jewelry lets pros offer their clients a stunning array of colors.
This is huge for anyone with metal allergies. Since they are already limited to only biocompatible metals like titanium and niobium, it can be difficult to find unique jewelry options. Anodized jewelry offers them the chance to wear colorful, unique body jewelry without risking an allergic reaction.
To get started, you’ll need the following supplies for your anodizing setup:
Choose from our range of advanced anodizing machines designed for ease of use and effect, beautiful anodization.
Achieve intricate and precise designs with our specialized anodizing wands. The wand attaches to the positive Anode lead (red) and is used to change the colors of jewelry with reactive metals. Choose from straight wands or hooked wands that allow for increased stability while holding jewelry in place. Quality paintbrushes are also useful for achieving certain colors and effects in your anodization.
Maintain the longevity of your anodizing wand by thoroughly scraping all colorization from the wand after each use with our scratch pads.
We recommend using TSP-PF Phosphate-free Heavy Duty Cleaner and distilled water to create the ideal solution for anodizing.
You’ll need something to submerge the jewelry in, and a simple plastic jar does the trick!
These strainers are designed to hook onto the rim of your submersion container and hold the jewelry in place during anodization.
Are you interested in learning more about anodizing machine for India? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!
Always be prepared with spare parts like fuses, anodizer knobs, and potentiometers to keep your equipment running smoothly.
Want to make it easy? Get started with our all-in-one kits that include everything you need for successful anodization.
Shop our anodizing machines and supplies today, and make your piercing shop the go-to spot for custom, vibrant, and durable body jewelry!
Q: We’re looking to begin processing aluminum and are going to add an anodizing line in our shop. With all the different types of sealing out there, what is the best kind of seal process we should consider?
A: That depends on the types of parts you are planning to process, whether they require color or not, and the layout of the anodizing line you’re looking to build. Sealing of anodized aluminum is considered the most important of the various steps in the anodizing process. How you seal determines the performance of the anodic oxide in its end-use environment. Depending on the projects you expect to undertake in your new line (and of course availability of space), you could consider having multiple sealing bath types in your line.
After the anodic oxide layer is formed, there are a number of sealing options that exist. In some applications, an unsealed or partially sealed coating is specified for hard anodized coatings to improve bonding of adhesives or organic coatings. This method is often used for internal components to enhance lubrication, or in the case of specifications for hard anodizing with the belief that an unsealed hard anodic oxide layer has higher hardness than one that is sealed. Contaminants are easily absorbed into the unsealed oxide layer, therefore if working with unsealed coatings, limited storage time and special packaging must be considered.
If the work you are looking to perform with your anodizing line requires full sealing, the three most common methods of sealing are high temperature, mid-temperature, and room-temperature or cold sealing. High temperature sealing traditionally involves hot deionized water, with or without additive, or a high temperature bath containing metal salts. This bath achieves its seal through hydration of the anodic coating, causing the porous layer to close off through swelling. It is simple to maintain and is an environmentally friendly option as it contains no metallic ions. Hot sealing will yield results for uncolored anodized aluminum and parts that have been electrolytically colored. If you’re working with parts requiring high reflectivity, such as those that are bright dipped or electropolished, a hot water seal is typically used.
Hot water sealing can be more expensive than other sealing methods as maintaining the bath temperature above 200ºF can be costly. Parts require longer sealing times and high quality deionized or distilled water. Formation of sealing smut or bloom is also more likely when using this method. To help with this, some hot sealing bath additives allow the use of hard water or less than deionized water quality, and also helps prevent sealing smut.
Sealing dyed parts in a hot water solution causes dye-bleed or leaching, increasing costs and reproducibility of color shades can become difficult. When sealing dye colored parts, consider using a sealing solution containing metal salts such as nickel, magnesium or cobalt. Sealing in a mid-temperature metal salt solution prevents leaching of dyes, requires less time in the sealing solution and can be operated at temperatures that are around 20-30ºF lower than a hot water seal. This creates an advantage over hot water sealing with energy and cost savings for your shop. While mid-temperature sealing baths can be difficult to analytically control than hot water, the prevention of sealing smut and the consistent color appearance make mid-temperature seals a well-balanced choice.
Room-temperature or cold sealing offers an advantage over the previous seals because it operates at 75-85ºF. While this reduces the energy cost for sealing, cold sealing differs from high- and mid-temperature seals in other ways. Typical formulations of cold sealing chemistries are nickel-fluoride-based that functions to plug the pores, while simultaneously etching the surface of the anodic coating. This acts as a cleaning method for improving bonding and adhesion, while reducing the tendency for forming seal smut. Cold sealing is more challenging to control than hot water seals and sometimes requires a hot water post-seal rinse to help cure the sealing and allow for immediate quality testing. If you are looking for the highest quality seal, you should consider including a cold seal in your process. Some suppliers offer cold seals that produce no greenish tint, even at thicker anodized aluminum layers greater than 25-30 micrometers. Similarly, some cold seals are available without anionic surfactants that you need to consider if you are sealing for Mil-Spec work (MIL--F). Cold sealing processes are being improved to meet the automotive industry standard for high alkaline resistance sealing at a 13.5 pH, which has always been a concern of anodized surfaces exposure to car wash fluids.
There are other sealing methods out there, such as Teflon sealing to improve lubricity and two-step sealing for corrosion resistance. Again, your choice in seal depends on the type of parts you plan to anodize and the color choices. Beyond that, whether you are targeting high quality spec work or if you are looking specifically for energy savings, there are many sealing options available for anyone processing aluminum parts with anodize today which should be helpful in planning for your new line.
Michael McGinty is the product manager aluminum surface treatment at Coventya.
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