Vinyl Stencil and Sandblasting

A friend of mine came up with what seems like a brilliant idea to me. I thought I'd run it by the forum to see if I've missed anything. Use a vinyl stencil cutter to make a stencil. Fasten it to a faceplate and sandblast to mark it. There are vinyl stencil printers for about $300 that would work for face plates. Something like this. http://www.uscutter.com/USCutter-SC-Series-Vinyl-Cutter

A small table top sand blast cabinet is also about $300. I already have an air compressor. The blasting guns and hose aren't expensive. It seems like it could be a nice solution for a finished look without breaking the bank.

My wife sandblasts stained glass.  It makes a pretty big mess.  Add to that you really need a vacuum system as the dust is really not good to lungs.
Just my $0.02, YMMV.
Best,
Bruno2000

bruno2000 said:

My wife sandblasts stained glass.  It makes a pretty big mess.  Add to that you really need a vacuum system as the dust is really not good to lungs.
Just my $0.02, YMMV.
Best,
Bruno2000

Click to expand...

It makes a big mess even when you use a sealed cabinet like this?  http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_333803_333803

I have a shop vacuum but I could get a dedicated small shop vacuum to collect the sand.

Gold said:

bruno2000 said:

My wife sandblasts stained glass.  It makes a pretty big mess.  Add to that you really need a vacuum system as the dust is really not good to lungs.
Just my $0.02, YMMV.
Best,
Bruno2000

Click to expand...

It makes a big mess even when you use a sealed cabinet like this?  http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_333803_333803

I have a shop vacuum but I could get a dedicated small shop vacuum to collect the sand.

Click to expand...

She built her own sealed cabinet with radiation style gloves, and a small shop vac with the exhaust blown outside.  One problem is when you take the "spent" sand out of the cabinet.
Best,
Bruno2000

Seems like a lot of up-front cost and mess.

I've had good luck with laser engraving. If you have a makerspace/hackerspace near you, they probably have a laser cutter that you can use. My local space costs about $150 for the three-hour training course and yearly membership, plus $25 for a two-hour block on the cutter. It will etch anodized aluminum beautifully and professionally, as long as you don't mind using anodized aluminum faceplates. It'll also take colored powder coat nicely off steel or aluminum, though you need to play a little bit with the settings (so it takes off enough but doesn't burn the surrounding area). Not so good for painted steel, so that may preclude its use for you.

Look for the definition on the cutter, maybe is not small enough to make the letters you want, been there...

JS

joaquins said:

Look for the definition on the cutter, maybe is not small enough to make the letters you want, been there...

Click to expand...

Ahh... That sounds like a it might be a deal breaker.

I've already thought about that and I have a friend who works printing things from years (and live reinforcement audio as well) and he told me against it with the vinyl cutter, laser cutter seems a good idea, you don't need the power to engrave aluminium, just enough to cut the vinyl or some other material good for the stencil. yeah, I know, not a $300 solution.

But, stencil only gives you one color, at least one per layer and alignment may be an issue for a second layer. For multicolor a nice printed image and a hard coating over it. I'd like to try toner transfer with multicolor over aluminium, I got much better with that on the PCBs once I stopped using the iron and got a laminator... Color toner seems nice. I've seen antisolder mask done that way but usually the toner has some iron content and I wouldn't want that over my PCBs, I'm ok with that on the front panel. Of course a nice coating over it should be applied or it will be gone before you mount it on a rack, the insulating lacker in aerosol seems good for that.

JS

I like a monochrome look. I'd do a high polish on aluminum and sand blast the legends for a matte finish. I know I would like the look.

Next up on the list is to engrave through high density polyethylene sheet (cutting board material) and fasten that on top of aluminum. I love HDPE. I've been using it for all sorts of things. I'm almost done with a back woods shed made from HDPE and T-Slot framing. Much lighter than lugging wood up a hill. I've made studio furniture from T-slot framing and HDPE.

I think those cheap engravers on ebay will be good enough to work with HDPE. I could give engraving aluminum a try and if the machine doesn't do a good job ( which I doubt it will) I'll use the HDPE sheet.

Al is easy enough to machine, a small machine should be able to engrave it, at least lightly or slowly enough.

I don't know how many front panels are you doing at once of the same, if many there are methods to protect better than a disposable stencil, serigraphy could work for you, there are some really fine fabric to get smaller letters. For one off is probably easier and faster to wait for a small CNC to engrave it. For a few you could use a small laser (few watts will cut paper) on the same CNC to cut some stencil for one off use.

JS

Think of a CO2 Laser Engraver instead.  A good chinese laser engraver starts at 1500 - 2000 U$.

Works very good on anodized aluminium.

...markus

It looks like this might work after all. The stencil cutter my friend has can do fine detail. He has an older model that is like this http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/shop/machines/curio. It's only $275.

We are going to start with a sand blast pencil which is a bit over $100. I already have an air compressor that is powerful enough. For tests I'll rig up some sort of container to capture the sand. I was thinking of a grill with legs for open fire cooking. Put the work piece on that so the abrasive falls through and collects on the bottom. I don't know how soon I'll get to it but I am optimistic.