A Blast from the Past

[revchris]

I just got an email asking about the directions for making EnginEarings, and realized I still had the old web page for it. It might actually be the first web page I ever made, and was done using WP Internet Publisher 6.1 in 1997 (yes, I took a page I had made in WordPerfect and exported it into HTML, in a process that leaves code almost as clean as what I write now, unlike how MSWord does it)!

Somebody's been making more of them every few years, as the undergrads frequently use them as a fundraiser and take them to one of the national conferences to help offset the trip costs, and they just got a request for the original directions (which include the grain growth process, etching, and anodizing).

Comments

[misteropinion.livejournal.com]

I forget... did you ever work out how to make green ones without using cyannic (or whatever was the reason the stuff was stupid toxic) reagents? I should re-mount mine, it came un-epoxied long ago.

[revchris.livejournal.com]

The green is a two-stage, reacted-in-place dye, but I'd have to go look up what chemicals it requires.

The blue dye is the cyanide solution.

[misteropinion.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... dredging the memory, was the green some sort of aniline? Yep, Wikipedia says it is a highly-acrid poison. It ignites readily, burning with a smoky flame, just the thing for undergrads.

[revchris.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was an aniline.

The black and green were metals-based dyes, but took a two-stage dye bath (into the first chemical, then into a second bath with a different chemical that reacted with the first one to make the color).

The gold is a single-chemical dye and works by, basically, depositing iron pyrite in the pores of the anodized surface.

I'll see if I can find the reference tomorrow.