I am pretty certain I am not the first to take a sharpie to the surface of a motor, but I’ll share this technique anyways. My wife gave me a bag of Sharpies last night and this was the first idea that came to mind.
I find that the large, wedge shaped Sharpie, stroking in one direction gives a nice even coverage. Here’s a comparison of the larger, wedge shaped Sharpie versus the standard conical shaped Sharpie on the right.
Wedge shaped/chisel Sharpie on right versus standard medium tipped Sharpie
Using the larger Sharpie, I find going in one continuous direction gives a nice even coverage.
It dries to the touch and can be handled without bleeding onto your hands once it’s dried. Unlike paint, the Sharpie allow the lustre of the metal to come through and simulates that anodized aluminum look. And because it’s such a thin layer of dye, it still allow the motor to cool off properly.
However, the drawback is that the faux anodized finish can easily be scratched or scrapped off. Luckily, it’s easy to retouch the scratched up parts. I think the results speaks for itself. It looks pretty nice when all is said and done. Very little effort and zero cost versus the bling, bling anodized CNC parts we hobbyist are always drooling over.
