Safety stuff -

Sean - Two words: GLOVES and respirator. Oh Heavy nitrile gloves (the black ones) made for chemicals; I'll see if I can get you a pair. Respirator would be organic vapor/acid gas cartridges with a pre-filter.

The Nickel Acetate is way not good for the skin and the Nicel Acetate is carcinogenic. If you can avoid it and use something else to sela the parts, I would.

I thought I saw somewhere somone was home brew anodizing parts with Rit dye; no kidding. All the chemicals used were hardware store stuff.

I've wanted to do this as well, but haven't got around to it yet.