Help! Cermark on Rimex Colortex?

[Michael Hunter]

I have an enquiry for making plaques from Rimex Metals "Colortex" material.
This is a stainless steel base which has had some sort of electrochemical finish applied to make it coloured - in this particular case bright blue.

Has anyone come across this stuff? and will Cermark stick?

I will talk to Rimex directly tomorrow, but any practical experience of using it would be a big help.

[Viktor Voroncov]

Keep informed about progress. I am also looking for product looks like Rimex Metals "Colortex" if it will be possibility laser engrave them.

[Michael Hunter]

Not to worry - the drawings came through this morning and most of the plaques are far to big to fit into my laser!

I did talk to Rimex though : the material sounds interesting and they are sending me a sample to play with.

[Viktor Voroncov]

Michael - time to upgrade your laser to bigger table :)

[Michael Hunter]

Update on the Rimex ColorTex.

The sample arrived ("mirror blue") and I had a play.

Firstly, the illustration on the Rimex website is misleading - the material is nearly black, flashing to blue only when it catches the light.

I managed to remove the finish* using lots of power (60W 100%) and very slow speed. The result was an uneven silver-to-light-brown : NOT good!
Vectoring gave a silver hairline, but it was a bit inconsistent - not good enough for a customer.
Vectoring many lines 0.1mm apart gave a dark brown finish and the metal absorbed so much heat that it warped badly.

So - this material is not great for the laser engraver.
Mechanical engravers could make wonderful things with it - it really is rather attractive.

* Aparently the finish is obtained by selectively etching particular constituents of the surface of the stainless steel away and the colour is caused by diffraction of the reflected light.
Unless you specify that it is for laser cutting (when they apply a protective coating), the finish is real metal with nothing applied.

[Viktor Voroncov]

And who knows how JDS BRASS PLATED STEEL PLAQUE PLATES made? Is it possible find cheaper supplier or supplier which is in Europe/Asia? Delivery cost from USA to Europe kill business :(