I tried this out on a cheap torch i got for my daughter. I put it under the grill as close as I could with some foil under neath. It took about 10 minutes to turn this bronze colour. Its a nice colour though the photos dont do it justice.
(sorry if the photos arn't great its my first attempt)
I would be suprised if baking the sand will change the color very much. If you bake a black host long enough it will go a sand colour but it will need to get very hot. I have noticed baking can improve the anno on some poorly ano’d lights.
Sorta hated this host for the most part. Something kinda cool about it now. I am presently debating about whether or not to put the head and the tail cap in as well, but for much longer so they come out a brighter copper colour. I like contrasting colours.
It really did come out gold. Well, the head and the knurled part of the body anyway. There is actually a separate piece between the knurling and the head which came out a sort of greyish army green type colour. The tail piece came out the same way, although it’s hard to tell in the photo. Seems that there were two different sorts of anodizing in play.
Now that you mention it, I can see the greenish tint. That turned out very nice. I like it much better than the Solarforce sand color (which looks more like a pimp's tooth :p ).
It really does look very very nice in person, and there is more contrast between the greyish green and the gold. But I only have my shitty phone camera to use at the moment unfortunately.
My oven only goes up to 250° C, but it’s fan forced so I positioned the L2i components right at the back, exactly where all the hot air rushes out. I also bent some aluminium foil up behind them and at the sides to create a little heat trap (not really sure how much difference that would have made though).
Full baking time was about 45 minutes after a preheat.