Hello.
I am working on a project that will have various colored 6061 shapes screwed together. I would like it to be as seamless as possible I would like to stay away from paint and how it creates a small parting line. Ideally the colors would be a gloss black and a gloss red similar to ferrari red. How can I achieve this without painting. Polish and anodize? Or something else. Thank you.
Plastic shrink jacket like Folger's instant coffee do yah?
Colour "surface finishes" for Aluminium have been problematic since the first
day of outdoor use. Anodizing has the delightful advantage of working with and
into the actual atomic structure - dropping a "dot" of colorizer into a hex-cell's center and being 'sealable' with more - transparent Aluminium Oxide - AKA synthetic sapphire. Seriously HARD stuff. But it is THIN. And the colouring compound may not endure. "Red" you said?
And then you have more thermal stress than many other materials, so coatings -
other than Anodize - need to be able to move with the metal ELSE temp changes enough and they lose their grip. See old Ferrari's, early days. Even when MONEY was not in short supply they were notorious for shedding paint like makup off a sweaty fat lady's face. Solution until better paints arrived? Back to STEEL for bodywork. Or just total them in crashes before the car or driver, either one, had
time to get ugly, same as combat aircraft.
Not a new problem, IOW. Whole industries have grown up to deal with it.
It took some seriously costly paint just to keep TAIL NUMBERS from falling-off Aluminium-skinned combat aircraft, once they got fast enough to run hot-skinned as well as seriously cold, for example.
Not sayin' yer asking the "impossible", but don't expect a great deal of cheap nor easy solutions for long-term durability, either. Not even with a major automaker (my old Jaguar.. Ford's MONEY..) or aircraft maker (
any of them..) funding the exercise.
Not limited to Aluminium, of course.
All base material, stone, bone, fiber, hides, and wood onward - has it's own set of challenges.
Some are just more ornery than others. Nature of "which beast", IOW.
Pick the best from what others already do. It will be the best you can GET.
And it will probably be "anodize it", clearcoat it...then JF LIVE with the service life yah get.
"Durable" highly intense colours?
Yah start with Gold, or "platinite", not shiney-wood. They don't MOVE as much.
Add fired glass "enamel".
See "Karl Gustavovich Fabergé".... and "eggs".... or ignorant incandescent lamp base-seals, glass to wire bond and hold a vacuum, sore cold to serious hot.
Now.. have a look at what automakers were able to do for hood-badges on brass, ZAMAK, or PLASTIC? Old "Bow Tie" Chevy, basic "FORD", to "Full Shield" Cattlejacks, Alfa-Romeo, even FIAT with enamel and real silver (well. "plated")?
Pretty impressive for the COST savings vs Karl's one-of-a-kind works, yah?
Even if some were closer kin to lemons, rather than eggs!