In a message dated 3/11/05 8:47:43 PM, albell@UVIC.CA writes:

<< > Would appreciate any and all comments or suggestions.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jeffrey Earl >>

Alistair has said it ALL regarding finishing AL.  As an aside, I have seen
websites which deal with home-brewed anodizing; although they deal with mostly
small items (camera and telescope fittings), perhaps the techniques can be
scaled up.

One hint: When working by hand with whatever abrasive you chose, either run
the abrasive off the end of the workpiece or lift it as you near the end of
your stroke.  Starting and stopping your stroke along the length of a workpiece
will result in a brushed patina which has a lot of "J" patterns instead of
lines which are consistent.  Any unwanted patterns are hard to remove without
stepping back to an abrasive coarser than the one which established them.

Please make sure to note that Alistair said "RANDOM orbital sander".  I've
seen ORBITAL sanders RUIN many a beautiful thing.

George