anodizing and cnc engraving help sought

[Rowland CarsonParticipant @rowlandcarson85592]

I'm preparing to have the aluminium instrument panels cut for my home-built aircraft (see http://www.rowlandcarson.org.uk/aviation/europa_435/index.php) and plan to use a commercial water-jet cutting service for that. After the holes are cut I'd like to have the panels anodized matt black and some lettering engraved on them – but those services seem much harder to find and relatively more expensive than the water-jet cutting.

I'm wondering if any model engineers who are set up and practiced at either anodizing or CNC engraving would care to take on those parts of the work for me – for a suitable consideration, of course. It would be great if I could find someone near my home base of Cheltenham, but greater distances are not necessarily a show-stopper.

I have of course read about anodizing in MEW but I'm not sure I want to spend the time getting good enough at it for a one-off job. And although I have a Cowells lathe & Sieg Super X1L mill, I have no intention of getting into CNC myself.

Any suggestions welcome!

in friendship

Rowland

[Rowland CarsonParticipant @rowlandcarson85592]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Have a look back over the last 10 days or so there was a thread on recommended anodizing companies.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Rowland, could I suggest to save you paying out lots of money that you get the panel cut out with the holes for the instruments and then anodised, then have small plates engraved on whats called, 'Trafolite' this is a three layer materiel that when engraved shows the colour sandwiched between the two out surfaces. These can then be attached to the panel with double sided adhesive tape. The plates can have bevelled edges.

Different colours can lead you to look at certain instrument readouts first. Engraving a big plate takes time and the end result is not always pleasing.

Clive

[Rowland CarsonParticipant @rowlandcarson85592]

JasonB – thanks, I will follow up the 2 suggestions mentioned in the anodising thread of 16 Sep 2013. As my workpieces are quite large and will need considerable protection to avoid getting bent en-route I'd prefer not to have to post them.

Clive – thanks for the Trafolite suggestion. As far as possible, I'd prefer not to have stick-on labels – they always remind me of Dymo labels which impressed me when I first saw them in the 1960s but nowadays look a bit Blue-Peter-ish. I've just remembered that my local sign-making company can offer that type of label. The ones I've seen previously look a bit large and clunky for some of the places I want to put inscriptions, but I'll investigate what's available now. Perhaps stick-on vinyl lettering might be an answer, although obviously not so durable as engraving or laser etching.

in friendship

Rowland

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

Rowland

Your local sign company could probably do the whole thing in a complete self adhesive film with the labelling printed in. It's possible now to cover a whole vehicle in self adhesive trim for sign writing purposes and it follows contours etc, a flat instrument panel should be a doddle for them.

Keith

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Rowland,

Just a thought, but over the years I've used a lot of sign making companies for work. They now have CNC. An engraved oak panel may be OTT, but you could have anything you like laminated into a fibreglass panel, and I'm sure some of the companies could do the aluminium anodised and engraved panel.

Use the work 'interpretation' as part of your search.

You could strat by contacting Arien signs: LINK

Neil

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Rowland.

As long as your parts are within the work envelope of my machine, then I should be able to help you with this.

Martin.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Can't help on the anodising front but some advise on engraving.

Anodised aluminium can easily be laser engraved, far easier than conventional engraving as slight curves in the work thru the material not lying flat are not affected as the focal point of the beam is not that critical.

In rotary engraving the work has to be dead flat or the depths appear different which looks bad. If the rotary engraver has a floating head this helps but the follower can leave scratches on the work, black is the worst.

For laser engraving to be pleasing it has to be a dark colour because the process burns the anodising off and you get white letters. Black is best, red and blue look OK but the rest of the colours don't contrast very well.

Clear anodising that has been engraved looks like the Italian flag, white cross on a white background.

This is an example of black laser anodising.

[mike mcdermidParticipant @mikemcdermid41977]

Rowland

Interesting I actually made the first ever europa whan it was known as aviation composites ,this was back in te days when Ivan ran it

A slightly more costly example is to use the company watsons anodizing in barnsley ,thats where a lot of stuff was done in the early days of 001 in fact they will provide you with a finished panel

Edited By mike mcdermid on 29/09/2013 12:20:55

[Rowland CarsonParticipant @rowlandcarson85592]

Thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions & pointers to firms.

Until now, I hadn't thought about using a sign-makers self-adhesvie film covering the entire panel; that could look good if the finsh was matt and it would be easy for me to create a master. I'll do some research on what local sign companies can do.

I certainly prefer the look of laser etching on an anodized surface and am aware of the problems with traditional engraving machines.

Martin – is it anodising or engraving you can do, or both? How far are you from Cheltenham? Both of the panels are odd shapes but the maxumim overall dimensions are 450mm x 230mm and 345mm x 265mm. They are 2mm aluminium alloy plate (6061).

Much obliged for all the helpful postings.

in friendship

Rowland

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Might not be relevant now, but earlier in the thread you mentioned getting water jet cut panels and I wondered why you chsoe water ove laser cutting?

I my limited experience I found laser cutting a lot less expensive. Both methods have pros and cons but on thin aluminium laser cutting I reckon laser cutting would be the most suitable.

Ian P

[Rowland CarsonParticipant @rowlandcarson85592]

I'm not bothered what technology is used for the cutting, but in USA where services for aeroplane homebuilders are more easily found, the most common instrument panel cutting services seem to be water-jet. I just assumed it was the appropriate choice. Most of the (UK) laser cutting firms only seem to do cloth, plastic, wood etc. I have now found some that will cut the thickness of aluminium I need.

Of course, what would be ideal would be a one-stop shop that would cut, anodize & laser-etch so I'd only have one set of carriage costs.

in friendship

Rowland

Edited By Rowland Carson on 01/10/2013 15:11:30

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Water jet will leave a tidier edge than laser cutting, which might be important.

[Frederica SHIRLEYParticipant @fredericashirley14967]

laser engraving and cnc router engraving is different, they have respective features

cnc router engraving has better perfect vivid 3d effect than laser 3d

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