[Stefan Buda]

Anodising done after a hiccup.
I've been getting my anodising done by Electomold, in Thomastown, for many years, because they work to military specs and are quite reliable. But their minimum charge has been going up way beyond de CPI and I had a bit of a shock when they told me that now it is $200 plus GST. So I took my bits to Collins Anodic and had them done for $70 plus GST - their minimum charge.

Even bigger hiccup with the front ring engraving.
I intended to have it laser engraved but for some obscure reason I got knocked back. Then I tried another laser engraver on Toorak road. They had a more primitive, CO2 laser based, engraving machine and wanted $85 for the job. I was not convinced that they were going to do it well, so I decided to mechanically engrave it myself. For that I had to cobble together a rotary platform and use my old CNC engraver. In the end I could not get rid of the backlash without making the axis too hard to turn for the stepper motor and the ancient software that runs it does not have backlash compensation. The end result is not much better than a hand engraving but it will have to do.