anodize your oem gear knob using 9v batteries and coke


eg6-b18c6

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Jul 20, 2008
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I'm thinking the ek9's come withthe same titanium gear knob as dc2's so i thought i'd share......copied and pasted from my itr-dc2 post..

I was reading earlier today that Titanium can be anodized using coke and 9v batteries.....only thing i had made of titanium was my oem gear knob....well i had to have a try for myself.

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what you need is a non metallic container (mug) put a folded bit of aluminium foil down one side of the mug, connected a wire for the negative (note in my pic i have the red and black leads the wrong way round GEARKNOB GOES TO BATTERY POSITIVE, FOIL GOES TO NEGATIVE). i attached my gearknob to a bolt and hung it into the coke (i used diet but i dont think it matters) THE GEARKNOB AND FOIL MUST NOT TOUCH.

the best way to do it is get your gearknob hanging in the coke and make sure theyre not touching before you connect the battery (batteries).

For my first attempt i used two batteries for 18v and got the results below after about 1 minute, a bit blotchy and not really the colour i was looking for.

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so i added another battery and put it back in for another minute..... getting more like it now

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i then started trying again, adding more and more batteries, but it just started going a bit grey. i sanded it down with a bit of wet and dry in a drill (took about 30 secs) and tryed a few more times. to get it looking like below i had 7 batteries connected together (63v, i think voltages upto 150v are used) and connected the power for about 3 secs, span it round 180 degrees and gave it another 3 secs.this was because i found the side nearest the foil changes colour a lot more quickly.


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The idea is that different colours can be gained by using different voltages, but you would usually have an adjustable power supply and better solutions than coke to get a broad spectrum of repeatable colouring. even so, just with the batteries and coke, i'm sure you can get good results by experimenting a bit........there's a lot more info out there on this, i have barely touched the surface.

if you like, have a try, and get some pics up :D
 
only on 'propper' type r's though, ep3's etc are alloy :)

:bow:

this is well good. so what happens if you do it and it turns out poo and you dont like it? no way of getting it back to its original state?
 
i wouldnt mind doing that myself!

how do you get the gearknob off, beacause i've tried a number of times and failed :(
 
I have about 4 crappy old metal JDM knobs, i will 100% have a go. But why do you use coke?
Dunx
 
I have about 4 crappy old metal JDM knobs, i will 100% have a go. But why do you use coke?
Dunx

I tihnk it needs a combined water/acid or water/alkaline solution and coke just being something most people have in the household :))
 
sorry, i didn't make it clear in my first post, if you dont like it just put it on a bolt in a drill and with a bit of wet and dry you can get it back to oem look in about 30 secs...i've redone mine a good few times.

coke is used just because of the acid in it, the fact it's easy to get hold of....you can use lots of other things including bicarbonate in water and lots of acids etc....in fact coke is probably one of the worst things to use it's just very easy to get hold of.

lots of info if you google for anodizing titanium, mine looks rubbish compared to some of the torches and knife handles people have done.

mine came off fairly easily, but i have removed an ep3 one before that was solid. you need to put a spanner on the nut below and crack it of clockwise as if you are trying to wind it further down the gear stick, once you have the nut cracked off it should wind off very easily but if not wrap something rubbery around it or just use stillsons and sand out the marks, although i doubt stilsons would mark or even grip on the titanium.

word of warning, i noticed the red lettering had a very small part lifting this morning, so i picked it all out with a pin and now it looks miles better IMO.....but if you really like your red lettering it might damage it (did mine about 8 times and only one tiny bit of paint lifted)
 
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i like the look of the last try! how did you get that look?
 
combination of resanding just parts of it, and just dipping in parts while i did it.

if you let me know what colours you want on which parts i can try and think of the best way to do it for you.
 
does this only work on titanium? or any metal?

was thinking of trying this on the spare rocker cover i have after stripping down the paint on it to bare metal if that would work.
 
Titanium only im afraid.

talking of rocker covers, thats how i found out how to do it, i was trying to find out how this was done.......

camcover.jpg
 
Bloody hell man...that gear knob looks so impressive! but not as good as that cam cover :)
 
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