Engraving: a modders "How To"

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2005/06/17/Engraving_for_modder/1.html

 

Wonderful guide

 

Beautiful! I love it.

Excellent and well written. This makes a rather difficult subject look almost easy! A great addition to the modding page.

 

Wow, I am very impressed with some of the work on that link, the engraved table and the cs pc definately deserve respect

 

Nice guide, thanks

 

Ditto all that.

Bit needs more guides like this.

 

Ah this is the type of content I first came here for

 

The guide is really good, makes me want to test out engraving some of my scrap plexi.

I don't want to be one to criticize, but perhaps a bit more detail on the techniques, I am especially interested in the frosting technique. But, maybe this is just the primer I need to practice on my own.

MatrixOps

 

id like to see some close ups of the 'bart' engraving w/o lighting too

very nice article, this is what is worth coming to bit-tech for.

 

Nice handy l'il guide there! Great work once again Bit Tech!

 

If you use a pin to prick the air bubbles behind the engraved parts of the design, the holes will let the air out and you wont see them.

good guide

 

hopefully it helps somebody.. lots of misstakes can be reduced if you get help from the start

 

I bought a cordless dremal about 3 months back and had a quick go at etching on some scrap acrylic board. It's great fun and very easy to get into (inspiration is the hardest part) but it can also be very messy - be prepared to have a lot of shavings to clean up...

 

I have a question for the author.. or perhaps anyone else who might know!

I can see how this would work for a tinted setup- but if for instance you were to try to light one of the back-painted and etched pieces- would the etching still stand out when lit or no? since the etching would be on the backside, would I only get a panel lit on the edges? or would the leds / cathodes shine through and light up the etched surfaces?

oh .. and.. if you were to etch the front of the panel and tint the backside you'd get the same black w/ etch effect. It wouldn't be in reverse either! heheh.

 

In my limited experience with etching, if you do that they don't show up so well. Where as if you light them up from the edge with the etched side facing away from you it picks up the light really well.

 

when painted and if you paint it so the light wont go thru the paint you can put the light aprox anywere, but if you dont paint its kinda annoying to have the lights where you can see them cause then the engravement wont be what you see it will be the lights.. "kinda like looking in to a lightbulb and hoping to see the wires ".
best thing to do is to try, put the piece in place and put the lights on a temporary place and try what you think looks best..

 

will the flex shaft fit on a dremel clone? like a dremel unit from mastercraft or somethin? or does it only have to be dremel?

 

i really dont know, but some other brands have their own flex shafts ..

 

Smoothness?

GoTall, how do you smooth large areas? Like for example i tried to engrave good round chunk on my case. I outline the circle, then I do sweeping motion (like filling blank paper with pencil) to clear the circle area.

but this gives me "stripes" texture! i see the spiderman article, on page 2, you finished the "solid area" of the smoke cloud behind spidey, but its still rough and has that stripe texture i mentioned above. On page 3, you "decided to fill the smoke cloud", and u did "fill" it and now its smooth

so my question is, i guess, how do you properly "fill" solid areas?

Thanks GoTall

edit: on another note, my next project is a .8 SECC steel case. black paint, but its still silver underneath. I engrave plexies before but i never engrave metals. Im getting the 7144/7134 dremel bit which is the diamond engraving bits. this is ok?