carving the centri

[peezie]

Couple months ago I posted about carving up my Centri and Halo. Some things came up and I never had time until now. Carving/Engraving is somewhat like tattooing in that there are no mistakes and if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
So, first order of business is stripping the Centri of its anodizing. Mike, the inventor of the Centri said that this anodizing was a harder anodizing and would be a little more difficult to remove. Looking at it, im guessing a type 2 anodizing. Some people here suggested easy off oven cleaner or lye which is what pro anodizing shops use. Well, I found out(from online forum so may not be correct) that easy off contains about 5% sodium hydroxide which is in fact lye. I dont know if that is a high enough percentage to strip type 2 anodizing. I found out that drain cleaners contain over 90% sodium hydroxide(the percentages i got from online and may not be correct). I had some drano laying around the house so decided to test it.
centri02.jpgcentri03.jpgcentri04.jpgcentri05.jpgcentri06.jpg
This is the stuff I used to do this. Wire was so I can handle the parts. Drano/Lye/Sodium Hydroxide is nasty stuff and you dont want to get it on your skin.
Just got a container of water and put some drano in. Wasnt precise or anything. Shook the parts around a little and the water started turning black. Took about 5 minutes for the parts to turn into a smoky color.

[peezie]

centri07.jpgcentri08.jpg
Took a tooth brush to it in a 5 gal bucket of water and the rest of the ano came off like nothing. Here it is, stripped of the ano except for some parts around the binding post which had residue of superglue.
Sketched an idea for the carving then brought it into photoshop to mirror it. The final carving/engraving will look close to this with subtle changes. Plan to do some carving within a couple days.I'll keep you posted.

[serial1313]

I can't wait to see that finished, that is going to be awesome if you can pull it off.

[OwlsDen]

Quite ambitious, can't wait to see the results. Thanks for sharing.

[MickWrath]

Ditto, this looks wicked cool, and great research and info about stripping the anno off. That will come in helpful for many people.

[tatu richie]

centri07.jpgcentri08.jpg
Took a tooth brush to it in a 5 gal bucket of water and the rest of the ano came off like nothing. Here it is, stripped of the ano except for some parts around the binding post which had residue of superglue.
Sketched an idea for the carving then brought it into photoshop to mirror it. The final carving/engraving will look close to this with subtle changes. Plan to do some carving within a couple days.I'll keep you posted.

fucking wow, cant wait to see it

[Sage Oz]

That's going to be some intricate carving! Will it wrap over the sides at all or just on the top? I carved the hell out of mine but still have a lot of detail left...

[Cyberitual]

Must be mod your Centri month. Did this to one last night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kh1xpavAg8

[fkirons]

Must be mod your Centri month. Did this to one last night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kh1xpavAg8

Bad ass bro!

[peezie]

I appreciate the feedback and interest guys. Sage, I will be covering the whole machine from front, back, side to side. That carving looks cool as heck. I used dremels to carve my stuff when I first started carving back in 03. Those splintery burrs from using a dremel on aluminum are killer.
Mike, that light mod looks dope bro. Can't wait till the Centri 2.