Tried my hand at Inkscape today and it was going well until...

peccary said:
Today I etched an enclosure and wishing I had more unfinished aluminum ones. I've got nearly a dozen different colored ones, but just the one unfinished. I'll have to pick some more up.

I don't think this turned out too bad for my second etching. The aluminum etched much more quickly than the copper did. Also, for some reason the Sharpie did not hold up well at all. The little pitting here and there I kind of expected, but the larger ones were decent gaps in the toner that I covered up with Sharpie. When I did that with the copper plate above it held up well and I had it in the mix for about 30 minutes whereas this one was in for about 10. I may have to steal some nail polish from my wife next time.

Anyways, I betcha can't figure out what this is for! Finished pedal and paint job forthcoming.

Just wanted to add: I used Hammermill gloss card stock and it worked much better in terms of printing, but I am wondering if the toner for Brother printers is just not as good for this task as other brands. Maybe I'll head to Goodwill and see if I can't find a cheap HP B&W laserjet or something.
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Looks great, I actually like the patina-like effect it gives it.
I think you're off to great looking boxes in the near future!
 
My extra masking technique is a Sharpie paint pen, works much better than an ink one. Also PVC glue works pretty well too but you have to be quick with it as one hard brush stroke will smudge the toner. Peels right off afterwards.
 
Nostradoomus said:
My extra masking technique is a Sharpie paint pen, works much better than an ink one. Also PVC glue works pretty well too but you have to be quick with it as one hard brush stroke will smudge the toner. Peels right off afterwards.
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I have some acrylic paint pens, but just did a search and found that those won't work. I may grab some from Amazon if my wife doesn't have any enamel nail polish she doesn't want any more. Thanks for the tip.
 
Nail varnish works well with ferric but not caustic soda (drain cleaner)

You can also sand any pitting out

Regarding printers I got mine off www.freecycle.org a website where things that still work are offered rather than going to landfill

It's worldwide so you should have a group or several locally

You get businesses etc offering office stuff and quite often, guitars, amps, pedals but you need to be quick

I got the printer and an old transistor radio off it the idea being to strip out any old OC44s but it worked so I gave it to a friend that collects them hard for me to do coz there were several mullard trannies in it haha

You don't need to list anything to be part of it you simply contact the person and arrange collection

With covid there's not as many listings but still worth registering I've listed stuff still in the box never used so you can get some quality stuff
 
Mcknib said:
Nail varnish works well with ferric but not caustic soda (drain cleaner)

You can also sand any pitting out

Regarding printers I got mine off www.freecycle.org a website where things that still work are offered rather than going to landfill

It's worldwide so you should have a group or several locally

You get businesses etc offering office stuff and quite often, guitars, amps, pedals but you need to be quick

I got the printer and an old transistor radio off it the idea being to strip out any old OC44s but it worked so I gave it to a friend that collects them hard for me to do coz there were several mullard trannies in it haha

You don't need to list anything to be part of it you simply contact the person and arrange collection

With covid there's not as many listings but still worth registering I've listed stuff still in the box never used so you can get some quality stuff
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Thanks for that site, I found a few in some surrounding cities but there's not a lot going on. I will keep my eye out, though. Pretty cool idea for a website, I like it.
 
For those of you who aren't yet bored by me documenting my learning process here...

I had some extra time after putting the kiddo to bed and decided to sand that enclosure down and try to get a better etch.

I think it turned out better. Lots of pitting, but I think that may be the toner, I'm interested in trying a different brand printer to see if what I've been reading about Brother printer toner is true. The toner coverage on this one was pretty good and I only had a couple of little pinholes, but you can see how pitted it still is. I don't mind the pitting, really, but there are times when I'm sure I will.

I masked off the large areas and used a pipette to put the ferric chloride only where I wanted it and I do think that worked better, I just want to work on a way to control the pitting.

new.jpg
 
peccary said:
For those of you who aren't yet bored by me documenting my learning process here...

I had some extra time after putting the kiddo to bed and decided to sand that enclosure down and try to get a better etch.

I think it turned out better. Lots of pitting, but I think that may be the toner, I'm interested in trying a different brand printer to see if what I've been reading about Brother printer toner is true. The toner coverage on this one was pretty good and I only had a couple of little pinholes, but you can see how pitted it still is. I don't mind the pitting, really, but there are times when I'm sure I will.

I masked off the large areas and used a pipette to put the ferric chloride only where I wanted it and I do think that worked better, I just want to work on a way to control the pitting.

View attachment 10398
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Looks great! Really coming along.
 
Prep is definitely the key to a good etch I sand it flat with 180 grit then finish it with 400 you want to remove as many pits and scratches as you can it's the bit I hate the most being naturally lazy, but the more effort you put into prepping the enclosure the better your results will be

If I'm not happy I'll sometimes sand the etch completely off and start again

Reverse etching also cuts down on potential pitting because it burns into the surface surrounding your labelling and you're gonna fill it with paint anyway so it doesn't matter if it's rough or not, this one I reverse etched the labelling apart from my logo and taped the rest off

20210316_053300.jpg
You can use translucent and other special effects paint if you look at this @Hexjibber one it's reverse etched then special holographic paint is used I use the Montana gold brand paints this is UK based but you can get it anywhere

Special Effect Spray Paints | Graff City

Transform your projects with unique effect sprays. Explore chrome, metallic, fluorescent, and glitter finishes at Graff City. Order now and pay later with Klarna at checkout.
www.graff-city.com www.graff-city.com

bh1.jpg

With this one I used solid and translucent paint of the same? colour sprayed then masked with a piece of scrap card and sprayed the rest as you can see my painting skills ain't the best

20201028_085435.jpg
You can get many different effects depending on how much time you want to put into it

There are plenty of free font websites that you can download and install into your editor if you want a different look

You're getting there my first efforts looked like melted plastic and I still get a few failures I once forgot about an etch which ended up burning through the enclosure so like anything in this hobby the more you do it the better you'll get and as always your worst critic will always be you!

I find it interesting seeing how you're getting on, as I'm sure others do, so defo not boring at all, keep it coming
 
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Keep going man, your results are getting better every time, it just tweaking those little details every attempt until you get your method down, once you're there its just rinse and repeat!
 
Thanks for the feedback, advice, and support folks. It is really cool waking up to your replies.

I didn't think I'd care too much about enclosure artwork/etching but now that I've actually given it a go I'm interested in refining this process and getting something that works well.
 
When i started I used just one enclosure and sanded my etch off several times to try different things

I actually used a belt sander then hand sanded it smooth with 400 grit to remove my etch

Not that I advise you always use a belt sander especially without a vice but whilst your trying different approaches why not it beasts it off in seconds

Give a reverse etch a shot I usually always reverse etch if I don't it's because I've forgotten to invert my image before I print it!

I get confused every time haha gotta keep saying to myself if it's black it's protected white gets burnt and filled with paint obviously once you've settled on your design all you need to do is invert your image to see what it'll look like
 
peccary said:
For those of you who aren't yet bored by me documenting my learning process here...

I had some extra time after putting the kiddo to bed and decided to sand that enclosure down and try to get a better etch.

I think it turned out better. Lots of pitting, but I think that may be the toner, I'm interested in trying a different brand printer to see if what I've been reading about Brother printer toner is true. The toner coverage on this one was pretty good and I only had a couple of little pinholes, but you can see how pitted it still is. I don't mind the pitting, really, but there are times when I'm sure I will.

I masked off the large areas and used a pipette to put the ferric chloride only where I wanted it and I do think that worked better, I just want to work on a way to control the pitting.

View attachment 10398
Click to expand...
Looking better all the time!
 
Mcknib said:
When i started I used just one enclosure and sanded my etch off several times to try different things

I actually used a belt sander then hand sanded it smooth with 400 grit to remove my etch

Not that I advise you always use a belt sander especially without a vice but whilst your trying different approaches why not it beasts it off in seconds

Give a reverse etch a shot I usually always reverse etch if I don't it's because I've forgotten to invert my image before I print it!

I get confused every time haha gotta keep saying to myself if it's black it's protected white gets burnt and filled with paint obviously once you've settled on your design all you need to do is invert your image to see what it'll look like
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A belt sander would have been nice. This was all elbow grease and I think this etch us deeper so I'm not sure I want to go at it again like that 😂
 
I'm a little bummed at how this turned out, but overall happy with the learning process.

I feel like the etch was pretty deep, but I suppose I'll need to go deeper. The top had been sanded flat multiple times, and I took off enough material to get rid of a previous etch, but there still must have been a high spot. I sanded this by taping sandpaper to a work bench so I wasn't using a squishy sanding block, which I thought would avoid this issue, but apparently I was wrong.

I dig this color - if it's in the late 80's early 90's LA Gear color palate I'm all on board :ROFLMAO: . You can see the pink I tried before in the spray box, but the paint was old and never really came out right so I went for the yellow. It also apparently glows under UV light which is kinda cool., but I don't have one so I can't see how that looks.

I may have time to build the PCB for this tomorrow and box it up. The photo isn't the greatest, but it's right after I hit it with a clear coat so it's super reflective - it took a better picture of the reflection of the sky and tree, I think lol. Other than the missing paint on part of the arrow and the "E" it looks pretty decent.

drive.jpg
 
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