This machine shop in Midland Odessa area has three different anodizing areas in 3 consecutive areas that are all adjacent to each other.  One area does only Type III hard anodize.  The next area over from the hard coat area does only Type II clear anodizing and nothing else.  The last area does only Black anodizing.  There is a 20,000 square foot CNC machine shop floor located in the main indoor only building. The anodizing area in the overhead door section and operate permanently from here.  This Type III hard coat, Type II clear anodizng for boat parts, and Type II black anodizing for firearm parts to service the $409,000 to $450,000 in anodizing service work they use to send out until they started their own anodizing.    The owner of this CNC machine shop was sick and tired of relying on anodizing shop to anodize his parts and literally had to FLY THE PARTS to an anodize shop in El Paso Texas.  That was the closest shop that could handle $400,000 to half a million dollars in anodizing.  This owner had to fly the parts in his eight seater plane from Odessa - Midland Airport to El-Paso Airport three times a week to either drop off or pick up.  That is insane to fly one's own plane to drop off parts to be annodized. 

Now the shop owner is able to control this lead time as well as anodize quality.  He could care less about saving money but this shop was able to pay for itself in about 9 months of anodizing services he no longer sent out.  Now the half a million dollars in anodizing work cost the owner $8,500 in chemicals and $1,500 in consumables.  He does have labor for three guys which is the head coating guy at $20/hour, newly trained anodize $18/hour guy who runs the anodize systems, and a $13.50/hour helper to help both of these guys get loaded and unloaded.  The anodizing line only runs 8 hours on Monday, eight on Wednesday and will run for 5 hours on Saturday to finish up the week.

 

This line was built to anodize the vast array of custom machined boat parts fabricated at this machine shop.  All the parts are Electropolished and then anodized with a clear bright finished.  

 

Above left is the aluminum soak tank and an aluminum brightener tank.  The picture to the right is the Desmut AL tank.  Behind the tanks on the right is a DI/RO water system for replenishing evaporated water in the process tanks. This negates the need for buying distilled water all the time.  You can also see this same DI/RO water system below too. 

 

The photos directly above and below are pictures of the anodizing tanks.  The bussing is done with solid 6063 aluminum and the cathodes are made from 1000 series high purity aluminum.  The clamps on the center bus bars are used to hold down the anodizing racks and secure the parts to the anode bus bar to insure proper current transfer to the anodize parts.  The bottom middle and the bottom right is the Mid Temp Sealer tank.  This is a non boiling sealer used in most of our commercial anodizing applications.  It requires heating much lower than hot seals, therefore it is more efficient and safer to use.

Notice how the Decorative Anodizing tank and the Mid Temp Sealer is filtered with Flo King filter systems.  It is the black unit with the blue top sitting in the back of the tanks.  The filter system is used to clean the tank solution, therefore insuring a long and trouble free solution life. 

 

Above is a fume scrubber for venting the Bright Dip tank.  Bright Dip AL has a very distinct ordor to it and most users do not like their shop smelling like Vinegar and oil times 20 so they use a fume scrubber to remover odor.   At the above right is the Type III anodizing tank with our standard 99.7% high purity custom extrusion 1100 aluminum.   This Type III tank is used for no dye hard coat.  The other pictures below are some other miscellaneous pictures from the shop which is the rectifier being wired by electrician   The next photo is an HVLP pump to drive mix sparger. 

    

Above is a waste water evaporator used for Bright Dip and aluminum chromate only.  The system at bottom is used for all other  steps.  It is a fully automatic, yet simple waste system that has 3 station treatment procedure.  Neutralization of electric charge in waste water, adjustment of pH to between 6.4 to 8.2 pH reading, add metal reducer, and finally add a metal coagulating chemical to make metal very easy to filter because it has precipitated out of the rinse water.  which runs automatically then a sewer discharge through a lime stone media filter.   Hope you enjoy the tour.

 

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