clear irons anodizing

Last week during Spring Break I anodized some parts for Eric. He wanted me to anodize some trays, coasters, and some prototype parts that he had machined. I've been meaning to get to these, but have had a lot going one. Since I was working in the studio on my own work over the break, it was a good time to get these parts going. I did a few parts with no dye as Eric had been curious about this. They turned out AWESOME. The first tray (copper/orange color) turned out amazing too, but the other trays are not quite so dramatic. I had some trouble with these trays as they are heavy and my fixture is not quite up to snuff as well as my various anodizing baths being a bit small for this size work. The coasters that I will be doing are bound to turn out better since they're smaller. The non-dyed parts are just so sweet as they really make these already awesome machined parts look so good.

penland summer 2018

Penland's summer catalog is out now. Look who made the cover! Rachel Kedinger is awesome, right?!  I'll be teaching an anodizing workshop in the first summer session. Sign up if you want to come learn about anodizing and dying aluminum, aluminum etching, and various resist techniques for both processes. It should be a good time!

anodizing setup

I built an aluminum anodizing set-up for the studio at school. I was bummed that I couldn't bring the set-up I made at UWM due to all of the hazardous chemical and shipping. I ended up buying new buckets and then welded up a new cathode plate surround last week. I got most of the chemicals mixed last semester except for the nitric bath, so I took care of that last week. I put labels on the baths this week, mixed dyes, and made labels for the colors. I gave the students a demo this past week and we did a small demo batch of samples. I'm really happy with the colors we're getting. I think the students were stoked on the process. 

They get to make 20 samples now to assist them in figuring out what finish their letter opener and utensils might possibly have. I hope to build a cart on wheels that can house chemicals and rectifier. I am just maxed out for space in my teaching studio. I keep crossing my fingers that we'll get a new building at some point during my career here. Wishful thinking...

caswell: knuckles

My friend Natalie sent this screen capture from Caswell's website. I hadn't been to Caswell's site for a while, so it was cool to see that they used Mike Isabella's Knuckles cutter for advertising their anodizing kits.

e-nable swag

The last couple of days I have been taking a bit of my time and creating some engraved e-NABLE dog tags that the e-NABLE group potentially plans to sell on easy as a way to raise funds for hand materials and such. I created three different version of this particular design and I am working on some others that I will post soon. I'll also be working on some laser cut wood charms soon. If you're interested in some e-NABLE swag stay tuned...

waea anodizing workshop

Two weekends ago I taught an anodized aluminum workshop for the WAEA (Wisconsin Art Education Association) Conference that was held in Milwaukee. I had a full class and the DCRL was crowded with art educators from around the state. The night before, I created several aluminum cuff bracelets and John McGeen cut some 2"x2" sample pieces and sheared and filed the cuff blanks for me. I stayed late and polished everything. Then I got to the studio at 5am the next morning and ran several batches of pieces through the baths so that the group could focus on the color and resists when they arrived at 9am. The workshop was a hit and I think everyone had a great time. I was so pleasantly surprised to see a few of my former students in the workshop. They now have teaching jobs so I was so thrilled to hear about their success stories and get a chance to reconnect. I had a great day.