My questions is why has this forum never been populated much by traditional wood finishing, hot bluing, anodizing, case coloring, etc?  I understand this sight is AR15 dominated (it is ar15.com afterall), but just became curious and looked through a bit and havent found much, if any, of the traditional finishing methods.  Has anyone ever polished and hot blued an AR, or is it not possible with much of the system being aluminum?  

Just curious, no bashing needed.  Just havent seen much and inquisitive as to why

Not bashing you, but obviously not any interest by anyone is the reason. The only ones I have seen are the Turnbull  mfg, which in my opinion, has to be the gawd awfullest AR that  I have ever laid eyes on. AND it costs an arm and a leg!
http://turnbullmfg.com/store.asp?pid=37491

This forum is more of a 'spray it, or don't say it'.  Notice all the above Tacked threads?
A rare question will come up on wood for a M1, or how to hot blue with home brew but again, it's rare.

You answered your own question.
Since AR's are aluminum, they can't be finished with traditional techniques.
Pretty sure if you tried to blue an aluminum receiver set, it would completely dissolve it. It's a chemical reaction, not a coating. Same with anodizing, you can't anodize ferrous materials in the traditional sense.
Different substrates require different processes.

Damn that is one ugly AR.

 



















 

That is what they did.