Need a coated aluminum to laser engrave for acid etching

[Adrian Page]

I want to make replacement VIN plates for antique cars. I have figured out the acid etching but the masking ... not so much. My laser will engrave the pattern in spray paint but it could be crisper. The spray paint I tried (Krylon Fusion) burns away a bit at the edges of the cut. I would prefer to have pre-coated aluminum that I could engrave without bothering to paint it myself. Wondered if there was anything out there ready made for this task.

Adrian

[Mike Null]

A black anodized aluminum should work. Try Johnson's Plastic.

[Kev Williams]

Are you running an outline pass after the paint-engraving pass? If not, try it, run a slow, low power outline. If it's still a bit choppy, it could be because your raster left-right/right-left tuning is a bit off, causing some lines to extend beyond the actual engraving boundaries. A fix for this would be to use the contour tool to add a second, slightly offset outline--

as an example, I made this up, the top is just simple black, but the bottom I used the contour tool and created a .001" offset and made it a yellow hairline, the blue background is so you can see it... and a close-up wireframe view...
387436 387437

--the lettering is 14 pt so the .001" offset is fairly pronounced. So after engraving the original, the offset vector pass should put a nice knife-edge on the paint. And if the Fusion paint still leaves a ratty edge, just try changing paint :)