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Blackening aluminium (and alloys) for optical parts.

As an amateur astronomer,I have made a number of telescope parts and accessories such as camera attachments using Aluminium alloy tubing, and wish to finish them with a durable, black, ideally low-reflectance coating. Looking at similar, but commercially made (and exorbitantly priced!) items, they commonly have an extremely thin, opaque, somewhat 'plastic-y' coating, but are not apparently anodised or painted, as such. Does anyone know what product I need and where I might obtain it in the UK, or better, is there a cheap home-brew method I could use?

Mike Sumbler
- Nottingham, UK
2000

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