For over 25 years United Anodisers Uxbridge, formerly LHT Anodisers, has used interference colouring techniques to produce the Anolok™ II Blue-Grey colour range, now featuring 4 shades of fade free Blue-Grey colours plus Stone Grey. During that time hundreds of buildings have been erected with durable fade free Blue-Grey anodised facades. United Anodisers’ interference colouring process has been proven in the only convincing way - through many years of problem free service.  This process is now also available at the UA Huddersfield works adding capacity to handle larger sheet depths up to 1.8 metres.

In response to the growing demand for attractive, strongly corrosion resistant, fade-free architectural anodised finishes, the latest addition to the range is Stone-Grey. This living natural colour with it’s metallic, warm, appearance is particularly attractive when married with stone bricks, terracotta or other natural architectural materials.

The first real test for this new colour was its successful application to aluminium building components. This was successfully achieved in 2007 to the required high standards and delivered on schedule. All parties were highly satisfied with the result and a photograph of the finished building is shown on the left side.

The Unicol Anolok™ II Stone Grey colour is, as is our full range of Blue Grey colours, created using the technique of light interference. Since no dyes are used, this produces a colour which is totally fade-free, not just fade resistant. In addition, this new colour exhibits all the proven benefits of anodising as detailed in the 'Benefits' section of this website. It is guaranteed for the lifetime of the building cladding and will substantially out perform all organic coatings and alternative anodising processes.

Unicol Colour Matching

United Anodisers is the only company in Europe with the latest Japanese UNICOL colour matching technology in the Anolok™ anodising unit at its Uxbridge plant. This technology uses pulsed square wave current, instead of the traditional but less efficient alternating current method, to deposit the metal into the pores of the anodic film - thus creating the interference colouring effect - with dramatically improved colour matching. This permits tight colour limits to be assured.

With our Anolok™ and Organic Colour ranges in batch, electrolytic and organic colouring in contiuous production, United Anodisers can offer more architecturally approved anodising colours than any other anodiser in the world. Our technical support services will be pleased to provide comprehensive details and advice on the selection, processing and application of a full range of treatments.

Materials

Because the Anolok™ II Grey finishes are carried out after the normal sulphuric acid anodising film is produced, all standard architectural aluminium alloys can be anodised to ANOLOK™ II Grey specifications. This includes the normal range of 6063 aluminium extrusions.

For sheet metal requirements, United Anodisers strongly recommends the use of a high quality, architectural grade, 5005AQ alloy with guaranteed gloss tolerances and we will be pleased to advise on suitable sources of supply.

Colour Range

These new 21st century colours will give the architect and specifier new opportunities to the latest fashion colour in buildings and we hope that this latest range will further increase the demand we have seen in the last few years.

• Anolok™ II Pale Blue-Grey B711
• Anolok™ II Light Blue-Grey B713
• Anolok™ II Medium Blue-Grey B715
• Anolok™ II Dark Blue-Grey B717
• Anolok™ II Stone-Grey

The colours shown here are for reference purposes only. Due to different colour renditions on computer monitors an accurate representation is impossible. For an accurate metal colour swatch please contact us using the Request Samples form.
 

Benefits

In addition to the general anodising benefits (see "benefits") Anolok™ II colours have these additional advantages over their alternatives:

• Dyeing
• Fade Free not just Fade Resistant
• Film Erosion will not affect the Colour

Electrocolouring

• Exclusive look
• Resistant to Iridescence
• Unicol colour matching

Other Pore Modification Techniques

• In production for over 25 years with proven performance
• Experience in Major Buildings
• Field exposure proving durability
• Proven colour reproducibility
• Widening pores shown not to effect performance
• Lifetime Guarantee

Technical

Maximum Sizes

Processing Limits for ANOLOK™ II colours are:

Extruded shapes - 6.8 metres

Extruded assemblies - approximately 6.8 x 1.25 metres

Flat sheet up to - 1.8 metres depth

Formed sheet - 1.8 metres depth x 0.45 metres wide

Where formed sheets are to be used, particularly if the third dimension is more than 200mm, it is important that detailed technical advice and agreement should be obtained from United Anodisers at the design stage, to ensure that sizes, joining methods jigging, etc., are in accordance with manufacturing and plant capacity.

A key benefit of ANOLOK™ II Grey is its proven performance on buildings over many years. To objectively evaluate this performance, we recently commissioned a detailed site survey of some of our more important projects. The results of this survey are extremely positive and are available on request. The results have enabled us to offer a Lifetime Guarantee on all our Anolok™ II Grey products, including Stone Grey.