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This weekend I read ahow-to on etching stainless steel that looked easy, found out that I am better off outsourcing an aluminum etch to Jwar and Excane, but then found some fairly approachable steps to DIY anodizing with relatively un-nasty chemicals and RIT dye. Anyone gone there? How were the results?

I would like to know this too… I've got a few aluminium pickgaurds that haven't been anodized yet...

Hammond style aluminum enclosures do not anodize well at all from what I've seen due to their high silicon content. You'd have to make sure the enclosure you're anodizing is the right alloy for it to work really well. There are a couple examples in this thread from a commercial supplier:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/inde ... ic=13716.0

That's good info. Honestly, I could still live with that -- with the right dye tint, that "blem" at the link could look artfully and uniquely distressed. If I don't like it, well, I guess I could do hammertone on top.

Yeah, it definitely has a certain blemished appeal, it just won't have that crisp anodized look one might expect.

It's a HUGE pain in the ass. I was thinking about doing it and decided that it's not worth it. It's less of a headache just to buy them that way.

How about DIY electroplating?

Somehow, I have done a lot of electrodeposition (primarily gold), and it requires weird equipment.