ORIGINAL: Vigilante212
.001 thick is a pretty thin coat of anodize. I work at a machine shop and when we make parts for customers we have to take into affect how much anodizing they put on its usually .001 -.002 per side, but this could be industrial grade hard annodizing. I think hard anodizing is actually harder then the aluminum its used to coat which is nice since you get the lightness of aluminum, but a bit tougher shell. now if you really want a wear resistant surface you could titanium nitride coat it
i think its like 50 rockwell hardness.
You are right. TYPE II anodizing is 1Mils = .001 inch max., thicker than .001 is going to be "Hard anodizing" the only problem with hard anodizing is that the part will turn darker and the dye will not get into the cells. I'm able to build a thicker layer but the results of color resistance are going to be the same, because the dye wont go further then .7 mils = .0007 inch, besides, hard anodize process is more dificult to handle and requires more time in the bath (more cost). From what i know and my experince no one of the pieces with color are hard anodize exept for black, dark grey (almost black) and dark green.
Oc.