Engraving advice needed

[Bale]

Can anyone point me in the direction of some advice or a primer on cnc router/laser engraving? I am building some DIY oscillators and synthesizer modules and would like to be able to engrave lettering and graphics on aluminium face panels. I know less than Jack about this, but with the availability and falling prices of machines, I'm considering doing it myself. Small scale and light use only; I won't be doing this commercially. Any help gratefully received. I've tried searching the forum but came up with nothing useful.

Pete

 

[julianf]

How many do you need to do? And how good do you want them to look?

If you only want to do a few, and you want them to look good, just outsource. If you dont care too much what they look like, then any cheap machine will make you some bad looking parts. Or if you want to do loads, and want them looking good, it's time to get your credit card out....

As an indication, I do this for work. The tool that I use to grind my cutters to the geometry that I match to the job has a list price of about £1.5k plus vat, and you could, at a push, pick it up with one hand.

Routing is not so bad - you can do routing without the fancy kit, but quality engraving is quite pricey to get right.

If it's only DIY, then lazertran can cause you as much upset as you want for much less money! : )

 

[julianf]

Here is a job I did for a chap in, I think, Finland -

I only did the metal work, nothing else.

Another option is laminated paper overlays. It just depends on your money to finish ratio. You can do nice looking DIY stuff in various ways.


...whilst im at it, i may as well show off some screen print work too -

(2 part catalysed pantone matched ink)

 

[Bale]

Thanks julianf, that's the advice I was looking for. More trouble for me than it's worth I think. I've seen your work before on (I think) Muff's. Impressive stuff! Keep it up.

Pete

 

[julianf]

(thank you)

Have you seen some of that acid etched stuff that crops up now and again? Its personal taste, and some may think it looks a bit too punk, but i really like it (not that ive done any myself!)

If you dont need square holes, than a drill press will do the holes for you, and then some sort of resist applied, and etch away the rest?

Most seems to be brass, but theres no reason you couldnt do it with raw (non anodised) aluminum, and somthing like caustic soda.

Some time, when i get around to it, i plan on silk screening a resist onto some metal work and giving it a go. Im wondering if you couldnt use that press n' peel stuff that people use for etching pcbs?

There are so many methods - i guess it depends what sort of finish you are looking for?

 

[Bale]

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply (again). I'm familiar with many of the ways to produce panels for modular synths, it's engraving I know nothing about. I have had swift and gratifying success with laminated paper in the past, but was looking for something a little different. I'm into sound design and I'm not really building a modular synth, more a collection of oscillators, electronic effects, attenuators and other processing units cobbled together from DIY, old guitar pedals and whatever else I can scrape up. Oh, wait a minute...

I'm only going to do this once and I was thinking of doing the panels to make it look consistent and with a kind of industrial aesthetic. I was knocked out by some work I found on Muffwiggler; pedals produced under the name Farndurk. Homemade brushed aluminium with hand-stamped lettering, they looked like they could withstand a nuclear war. You may have seen them. I was wondering if it was possible to produce similar markings using cheap far eastern desktop engraving machines to produce less-than-perfect graphics. I suppose I'll never really find out unless I buy one and give it a try, but I suspect it may be too much trouble all round.

Moral of the story: don't drink wine whilst sitting at the computer :wink:

I know what you mean about the acid-etched look. I might look into that. Small-scale metalwork is not going to cause me any problems. I have a pillar drill, also two tiny milling machines and another miniscule one, and seven lathes at the last count, if you include the one for wood. I might make my own knobs



Thanks again

Pete

PS: I found your website. I visit family in Exeter from time to time (I'll be there on Saturday) so our paths may yet cross.

 

[Rorschach]

Engraving is easy.

Neat, tidy and fast engraving is not :lol:

 

[AndyT]

If you want something looking hand stamped, sets of metal letters don't cost a lot used or new and I guess you already have a hammer...

 

[Bale]

I did consider that, but wanted an option to do graphics as well as lettering, and I'm really not up to engraving by hand.

Pete

 

[julianf]

Pete,

Do you have your graphics sorted? Is this a single panel (or everything behind one large panel) or lots of small bits?

Or is it just hypothetical at the moment?

 

[Bale]

Hypothetical at the moment, although they will get made eventually as I've got the parts. Time to join the local makerspace; they've got some lasers!

Pete

 

[julianf]

When your plans start to take proper shape, drop me a line.

If you're driving past, and catch me on the right day, it may be that I can offer you a better option than may be availible elsewhere...

 

[Bale]

Thanks. I'll certainly bear that in mind.

Pete