I stopped in to see the owner of a machine shop we often used before I retired. Don's shop is set up for both manual and CNC work so he has quite a few neat "toys". He recently took on a contract job to do some Mil-spec work for the military and one of the requirements was permanent bar coding on each component. The coding had to withstand quite a number of potential destructive damage sources, so Don had to buy a laser etching system, complete with windows based software to control it.
I brought him over to the HMEM forum to see my little Victorian engine and in the process, asked if his laser could engrave. It turns out that it can do so on a variety of metals ranging from cast iron, steel, stainless, aluminum, copper, brass, bronze and a whole bunch of exotics I'll never machine. He took me over to play with the system and I'll have to say it was astounding.
This thing can do a number of tricks. For etching, it can permanently burn an image, text, or bar code onto the metal at the molecular level without so much as rustling the surface. On top of that, it can do it in multi-color if the metal is stainless or ferrous based. It takes advantage of the various colors so well known to those who heat treat metals. Micky Mouse looked as good on metal as he does in color print.
He then tuned the thing to engrave mode and proceeded to cut perfect letters into the metal with a much nicer look than I've seen from jeweler engraving. Not only were the results clean and crisp, Don was able to make the header text golden-copper colored while making the smaller text black. He says colors are limited on non ferrous metals, but the deep cut with a white surface face sure did look good on aluminum. Unfortunately we ran out of time before he could demo the same setup with a black face.
I asked what a small "one off" tag for an engine would cost, should Joe Six-pack wander in off the street asking for one and was shocked to learn he'd do it for about $6.00, including setup, assuming it's a simple design..... about twice that if things are a bit more complex. I didn't ask about prices for the color work, but will be happy to do so if anyone would like to consider it.
Seems like a cheap way to add a nice classy look to a build and I'm not afraid to recommend Don after having happily dealt with him for nearly 30 years. I think my Victorian will be getting a bit of high tech engraving in the very near future. Beats getting a tattoo myself....(grin)
Steve
