Hey RC,
Why not anodize the stuff yourself. I don't know how big or quantity your talking but the investments is like nothing. Battery charger, some distilled water, a bucket or two, and a solution of battery acid, dye from the food store. I just let my friend do it for me. That's much easier! 
RICH

Sam,
I don't see any wires coming from your tool setter. I was wondering if you could use the plug in from CopyCat for center finding such that on contact the axis will stop ( it is quite accurate). Haven't had the time, yet but starting to think about an easy one for setting lathe tooling. I guess you can also use capacitance to turn on a light.Touch off and at a known distance from X=0 and then just back off. Quick and dirty!
RICH

Hey RC,
Why not anodize the stuff yourself.

NO KIDDIN' ?
I didn't realise it was that simple.

I'm afraid the scope of the process goes beyond a simple quick answer.

Just assumed there was more to it than that.
Maybe I can just put the parts in with my Easter eggs and get whatever color I like ?

I'll definitely look into it, any "homebrew" links would be helpful .

Thanks RICH,
RC

Russ,
There are links and folks that selll kits , but you can buy the stuff for a few bucks. In fact, the one guy is always at Cabin Fever. Let me see if i can Dan ( OVER30 ) to post or I'll just get you some info.
It is not that hard and it makes Al super slick and wear resistant since you basicaly have a colored carbon / metal oxide coating on the Al.

RICH

I checked out Caswell from Sams link.
Looks fairly basic. Will dig a little deeper.
Missed that guy at York, maybe we can find him next year.
See Ya,
Russ

Well, it's not really as simple as Rich is making it sound. No offense Rich. The basic process is very simple. Anodizing is just a layer of oxide, just like rust on steel, and all your doing is making it rust rapidly. So to speak. You do, however, have guidelines that need to be followed, thereby adding a bit of challenge. Temperatures have to be maintained, mix of baths have to be within limits, so on and so forth. All this is adding to more experience needed for the results you want time after time, and more money investment needed for proper equipment. In Rich's defense...it's not all that hard either. If you just want to meddle with it to see if it interest you, you could get results with less than 100 bucks. Probably less than 50. Basically what you will have is a science experiment. A decent anodize system on a small scale would be in the neighborhood of 500-1500 or more.

I don't see any wires coming from your tool setter

Yeah, I haven't wired it yet. I'm just gonna drill a hole in the side and epoxy a cable in it.

Do you just anodize for yourself

Yep, I don't consider myself experienced enough to not ruin others parts

Seems like the the larger plating outfits  don't cater to the small guy with just a couple of pieces.

Yep, there's just no money in it for them, and the risk of dipping an unknown alloy in their tanks and costing hundreds or thousands of dollars is just to great for them to fool with. If your very flexible you *might* get them to run parts with another larger batch. Just tell them the series of aluminum you have, and get to it when convenient.

What are your capabilities

My tank is probably around 1 square foot. I have only done solid colors (no fading or blended stuff)

anything with a NIPPLE on it would do nicely

HAHAHA!!

I love the tool setter, but don't see how to interface that with Mach3.  Is there a section in the manual for that?  I'm an idjiot that can't find it;)

Barry

Let me just refer you to another thread, that goes into a lot of detail.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36099

Thanks!

Yayagoogooooo!!!!!! 

Brett