Anodizing Titanium
by Jason Howell

Thought I'd show what I have thrown together for my anodizing rig. I'd like to thank Johnny Stout and Craig Shelton for giving me a hand getting mine done. You'll need a jar, some SS heat treat wrap, some plastic canvas, power cord, ti leads, rheostat, distilled H2O, TSP, and a 4-way bridge from radio shack.

Here's my knife before anodizing.
Closer shot.
Torn apart ready to anodize.
Power from my outlet to my variac, variac to my 4-way bridge, and from my 4-way bridge to my anodizing leads...
Here is the bridge itself, Radio Shack won't know what you want if you take these ##'s to them, so I have a picture and "Radio Shack" part number later...
Here's the wiring setup. I'll try to get a schematic drawn and scanned in.
Here's the package from radio shack with part # (I saved for some reason).
My jar, ground strip in jar made from SS HT foil, shield made from plastic canvas from hobby lobby, leads (one with micarta grabber)...
Distilled water and TSP I don't know how muck I use, just know it's maybe 2 tbsp to the quart jar and each time I use it I add about a tsp more and top off with distilled H2O.
Here's probably the best tip you can get (thanks Craig)... Polish your liner edges with a buff and rouge. You want a polished surface. I buff, clean with acetone and the liner goes into a bath of plain distilled water until I get all parts cleaned up. This does not allow the air to start oxidizing your Ti. It goes straight from this bath to the TSP bath.
I also clean up around my lock so it will anodize nicely.
My rheostat stays in my drawer, just pull my leads out when I need to anodize. My shop is kinda small and counter space is limited.
Liners are picked up out of their distilled bath, outside to outside, and placed in the anodizing rig.
The plastic keeps you from hitting the other lead. With the liners submerged, I now turn on my rheostat at the lowest setting and start adding current. The liners will bubble, so I shake gently to make the bubbles rise. I raise current till I get the color I want.
That's about the color I want. Kinda blue/purple. Colors start at a straw, to a bronze, bluish, purple, etc...
Liners dried, detent ball is set, and laid out ready for assembly.
Finished knife, anodized.
Anodizing may not be right for every knife you make, and should not take away from your knife, but add to the beauty, or accent your knife. Most of mine get a straw color, some cry for something more.

I sure have enjoyed these tutorials and will keep adding them as I find things that I feel would be beneficial to making these knives. These solutions I have found or learned work for me in my shop and my techniques evolve fairly rapidly. Some of what I did on my linerlock tutorial have already changed. My ways are probably not "right", but they work until I find a better way to do them.