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Final finishing of an anodized fly fishing reel

September 21, 2011

Hello Everyone!

My name is Joe Mathis and I am part of a new fly fishing reel manufacturing startup in Bozeman, Montana.

All of our reels are machined in house and then anodized. My problem is figuring out the best product/process to use to "fill" channels in the reels for our logo and model information. I can get an enamel product to work perfectly but, I am not convinced of the durability. I am pretty sure we need to use an epoxy. My problem is how to apply and then clean up the area around the channels without effecting the material in the channel. My gut tells me we are overthinking this whole thing...

An example of the effect we are trying to achieve can be seen here.



Thank you for any suggestions.

Best,
Joe

Joe Mathis
Manufacturing operations - Bozeman, Montana, USA

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October 12, 2011

It would seem, based on the location of your logo, that it's an area that wouldn't see much "wear and tear". You've got several options:

1: Do as you've tried, and continue with the enamel process, test throughout a season of continuous fishing (this sounds like the most fun test of all)

2. Have your anodizer, (if competent in the process )employ a silk screening technique with Aluprint. Downside will be a marked increase in coating cost.

3. An option that I personally think would look cool...would be to anodize first (w/o the mill work being done on your logo), and then, after anodizing, either laser engrave, or mill your logo and model # afterwards, leaving your logo and model # with a nice shiny Al surface to stand out against the anodized background, this would solve your worries of having to worry about a secondary coating eventually flaking off.

Marc Green
anodizer - Boise, Idaho