Scott Shepherd
12-22-2012, 9:03 AM
Had a call from a new customer asking me if I could engrave something for them. It's a prototype part that will go into full mass production at some point. The product is complete, but needs to be engraved. We're in the middle of expanding our shop, so all our equipment is down. She brought it in after business hours on Thursday (I waited for her), and I immediately looked at it and said "What's this coating? Is it anodized or powder coated or what?". She said "I don't know". I said "Well, you've only given me 1 item and I have no way to test it, so I have to have some idea what the finish is if you want any kind of result. She says she'll get back to me on Friday, but she needs this by Wednesday (day after Christmas), and tells me they are closed on Monday. So I get the email yesterday afternoon saying "the spec says it's aluminum, that's all we know".
So now it's Saturday, and I have a couple days to figure this out, but what she handed me is a complete, finished product that has no hidden areas on it. It's a consumer product, and Wednesday, this one item is being shipped somewhere to someone important. Not sure if it's going to be photographed for marketing purposes or tested by a magazine, or what, but I know it's being shipped somewhere on Wednesday morning.
At this point, I'm stumped. It looks a lot like black anodized, but the finish isn't smooth and slick, it's almost like a matte finish anodizing. But, it could very well be some other coating I'm not familiar with. There is a tiny edge, about 1/16" thick on the bottom that I might be able to test on, maybe a dot or something, but not much more than that.
My fear is I engrave it like something anodized and it's something else and then I can't recover. So I'm trying to think how I can set this up so if it doesn't engrave right, I can recover. I thought about masking it and engraving through the mask, so if it doesn't work, then I can airbrush it white, but I don't want to engrave through the paper tape if it's anodized. I don't want that glue residue messing that up.
Any suggestions?
It's fairly small, maybe 1" x 3" with some 1/4" tall letters under the logo.
So now it's Saturday, and I have a couple days to figure this out, but what she handed me is a complete, finished product that has no hidden areas on it. It's a consumer product, and Wednesday, this one item is being shipped somewhere to someone important. Not sure if it's going to be photographed for marketing purposes or tested by a magazine, or what, but I know it's being shipped somewhere on Wednesday morning.
At this point, I'm stumped. It looks a lot like black anodized, but the finish isn't smooth and slick, it's almost like a matte finish anodizing. But, it could very well be some other coating I'm not familiar with. There is a tiny edge, about 1/16" thick on the bottom that I might be able to test on, maybe a dot or something, but not much more than that.
My fear is I engrave it like something anodized and it's something else and then I can't recover. So I'm trying to think how I can set this up so if it doesn't engrave right, I can recover. I thought about masking it and engraving through the mask, so if it doesn't work, then I can airbrush it white, but I don't want to engrave through the paper tape if it's anodized. I don't want that glue residue messing that up.
Any suggestions?
It's fairly small, maybe 1" x 3" with some 1/4" tall letters under the logo.