Laser engraving an artillery shell - question

[Donna Ashby]

Our daughter's boyfriend Jeff (in the army reserves and recently returned from 18 months in the Middle East) has an artillery shell that he would like to have engraved.

His grandfather was a WWII vet and received a 21-gun salute at his funeral. The shell is from the salute. Jeff is the only grandchild to join the services and the memento is special to him.

He asked if I could engrave it with his grandfather's name and perhaps WWII. I have a Turbo Carver but I lack the expertise to do justice to an important keepsake like this.

I need to have him look at the shell to see exactly what caliber it is, but it's probably a .30-06.

Is it possible to laser engrave a spent artillery shell?

Thanks for your help.

[Rodne Gold]

Yes it is , with a rotary attachment.
However it has to be coated with a pottery glaze whuich fuses to the surface due to intense laser heat , whuich gives a nice black mark , however if the shell is brass , it would need cleaning now and then with an abraisive polish , which will not do the mark any kindness.
A better bet would be to actually engrave it , either by hand or have it done by someone with a pantograph or a computerised rotating bit type engraver.

[Joe Chritz]

If it is a rifle cartridge shell casing it is brass, actually cartridge brass which is a brass alloy of some kind. It will not stay polished for extended periods without help and an actual physical engraving is a better bet.

It is likely a 7.62x51mm (.308) which isn't very big. When I read artillery I was assuming something like a 105mm howitzer which is about 1 foot tall and would lend itself great to engraving.

Perhaps a plaque, engraved and add the shell as a detail.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Joe

[Martin Boekers]

Rodne, tell me more about the pottery glaze.

I have access to that as well as kilns in our center.
I have thought about it but haven' had achance to experiment with it.

What type of power do you need I have a 75 watt laser.

Is the mark durable? Do other colors work as well? Any particular brand?


Thanks!


Marty

[Rodne Gold]

Basically , that is what metal laser marking products seems to be , its molybdenum tri or disulphide.........
I dunno if anyone else has experimented with pottery glazes , you might be lucky and find one that works with diff colours etc?
I havent really bothered , we use Cermark/thermark/cerdec or whatever they call the product these days cos it works gewd :)
I would use high power and low speed if you try , you need to get high temps

[Gary Hair]

Donna,
There is no reason you couldn't polish the shell, laser it with cermark and clear coat it with Krylon or something similar. This would be very easy for me using my rotary attachment. You could also polish it, clear coat it, laser through the clear coat and use an oxidizer to make the mark black.

Gary

[Leon Sandstrom]

I used Cermark on a nickle plated 40MM gun salute shell. I actually put pictures along with words. I then used some black and white nylon line to add turks head knots. the results were very good.

One thing to keep in mine, as the shell gets smaller at the top, it tends to change the shape of the pictures. To get it right, I wrapped the bullet in masking or painters masking tape and then engraved the design. If it looked funny, I stretched the shape in my design, rewrapped the bullet with tape and tried again. Once I got it where it looked right, I removed the tape, cleaned the metal and sprayed on the cermark. Then I let it sit over night and engraved it with the rotary unit. I find that it is best to wait to engrave for a bit or the cermark will cause the unit to slip.

I was using an Epilog Helix 45 Watt machine. Guess the moral to this post is use tape and keep the power low until you get it the way you want it. Once you engrave with the cermark, it is pretty much done.

[Mike Null]

I would diamond drag it. It's more permanent and more in keeping with the time.