experiments in a 670 Brass Panel...

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user 10827

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
Messages
786
Hi Guys,

does this go in the LAB, maybe...

well i wanted to make a panel look like this

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/420730394_033073e23f_o.jpg

so I had ago, it's not bad, as you see from my pics I engraved and filled the brass, and this looked yummy all shiny. then I sat the panel in Acid, and thats what turned out, but with playing with the amount of dirt/grease on the panel pre acid affects how it looks in the end, so i need to play more with that, and maybe try different acids...who knows...I can also get the white to be perfect white, just depends on what you use to fill, The red is high gloss paint, so that buffs right up, where as the white here was a hard wax, and that takes some of the dirt for a really battered look, but using high gloss paint would fix that..

the second RED Fairchild turned out much better than the first as i thinned the paint and used my FLo-Pen...looks nice and even now..

all good fun though..

670brass.jpg

670brass1.jpg

670brassaged.jpg

670brassaged1.jpg



 
Cool.

I expect the original panel is copper plated steel, and the one in the pic has had most of the original paint (or stain) worn off through use and cleaning.    Anyone confirm? 
 
Cool.

I expect the original panel is copper plated steel, and the one in the pic has had most of the original paint (or stain) worn off through use and cleaning.    Anyone confirm?

I took that original photo - I think it was just a painted aluminum panel, but don't know why it has worn that way. I'll look again next time it's in for service.

Your brass panel experiments look very cool! Do you do the engraving yourself?
 
Hi chaps!

Well im bold over that you like it. I'm certainly going to use it for some of my own builds.

tomelectro - you took that picture! wow that is interesting. Painted aluminium, really, wow i would never of guessed that. its possible i suppose its not anodised, so its able to be affected by the paint in some way. I have a different acid that has a blacking effect of non-anodised aluminium, generally used for letter engraving, its not overly pretty, but im just thinking about your panel, maybe the paint has had a similar affect.

Yes i do all the engraving.

Cheers
Pete
 
Painted aluminium, really, wow i would never of guessed that. its possible i suppose its not anodised, so its able to be affected by the paint in some way.

Well, I wasn't positive it's paint, I was just pretty sure it's not a copper plated steel panel, but rather an aluminum panel. Here's a couple more pics.  You can see the finish is much darker around the edges where it was covered by the grey front panel.  Also the backside of the front panel is finished dark as well, instead of being bare aluminum like I've seen on another 670 (that one definitely had a black painted aluminum front panel). Also, it looks like the finish continues through the inside of the front panel holes around the trim pots. You can also see a scrape in the finish on the last picture, but it doesn't go clear through the finish. These facts along with the finish being discolored where subject to light makes me think it probably is anodized after all.

670nocover.jpg


670close.jpg


670inside.jpg
 
Wow, super pictures, I love the faint speckles on it, I reckon i can make one pretty close.


Ptown - this is a Flo-Pen, Not cheap, but in some cases very useful. It has a gravity pot, a lever to control the flow, and different size nozzles, it virtually elminates the need for clean up.

To be honest ive found it only useful a few times, and the clean up of the pen takes twice as long as the job you needed it for! but in those special cases where you are working with paints that are hard to get off of the surface material, like stone, or painted finishes etc then its pretty cool.

Flowpen.JPG


 
So how do you normally fill...just paint and wipe excess? I've done so many experiments with so many different paints and lacquers and been unimpressed by all of it so far.
 
If I remember correctly some people in this forum report that injection needle and syringe from nearest drugstore is cheap solution for infills!

edit: few links, many more with search
http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=38504.msg474617#msg474617
http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=24919.msg347952#msg347952
 
Well I finally got round to doing it, gee 3mm brass is not cheap! in fact its so heavy I'm not 3mm is necessary, 2mm would be fine.

So the only mistake i made here was that the engraving did not go deep enough to stay in through the patina process, it hung in there, but needed to do some work to fix that, but I knew it had to be .3mm or more but clean forgot in all the excitement!

I quite like it, although its not that dissimilar to Tomelectro's picture I'm going to turn the brass over and try again, see If i can get it spot on.

Fairchild670aged.jpg




 
Looks Killer!  great work.

I do know a painter who could do a finish like that as well on aluminum.  We've done it many times on guitars and drums and other odds and ends.  I love that stuff but you have to have a really talented painter.  I'm not sure which way would be cheaper.  But either way keep doing what you are doing because that does look really great!

 
Thanks Dan,

the aluminium painting sounds interesting, most likely out of my skill range by the sounds of it!

:D
 
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