Name Plate Recreated.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I was asked by someone on one of the Facebook groups if I could help him to replicate this engine name plate, it is about 80mm wide.

I soon had it drawn up in Alibre and sent a STEP file off to him

I just got a photo back of the finished cast and painted plate. Which look to have turned out quite well.

 

[StevePParticipant @stevepye68246]

Excellent result Jason,  proportions of the  cad model spot on.

I’ll look to add a name to the engine I’m working on .

I hope it’s possible in Atom3D.

Steve p

 

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Very good ! A tip, fettle, clean up, then polish. Then using a toothbrush warm/hot water and washing up liquid give a good scrub to remove ALL trace of polishing compound. Using aerosol cans first of high build primer or spray putty give a coat all over. Have a bit of cloth stretched tightly over the end of your finger dipped in thinners and go over all the raised areas to remove most of the paint eg letters and border. Let the paint dry for 20 or 30 mins then repeat. Don’t worry about a thin layer of paint still left. If happy so far then repeat with the colour coat as many coats as you need. A final clean with the thinners as above – job done. I do not recommend using varnish or lacquer to stop tarnishing, a periodic rub with a clean dry cloth will bring the lustre back.  Noel.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Steve, I think Atom will have all the features that I used in the Pro version. The only one I am not sure about is getting the text to follow a line. Even then all is not lost as you can place individual letters which is something I have done in the past but it can take a while if there is a lot of writing.

I’m not such a fan a bling so would not polish up a plate like this. Just machine or fettle it then take it to about 320 grit with the abrasive on a flat surface. Paint and then use the abrasive again to remove the paint from the raised detail. Or as I did yesterday and you will soon see in a new build thread just clean and paint the casting and then take a light cut to bring out the raised detail, leave at that.

This one has the “brushed” look left by fine abrasive. The unpainted ones are bead blasted. About 40mm wide

[Julie AnnParticipant @julieann]

In the picture the outer ring is a casting, the underside of which is machined to match the curve of the smokebox door:

The supplied inner nameplate casting was recycled as it was badly cast and the lettering was incorrect. Instead a brass ring with the lettering was designed to fit into a cast iron turned body. The ring was designed in 3D CAD, placing individual letters as Burrell used a very narrow font which didn’t match any available font in my CAD program. So each letter had to be created specially. The ring was then machined on the CNC mill. Painting in both cases was two coats of etch prime followed by four coats of high temperature black. The sides of the rings were masked but on top everything was covered with paint. After a few weeks to dry 600 and 800 grit wet ‘n’ dry was used to expose the lettering and inner/outer rings.

The lettering on the outer ring was machined prior to painting, otherwise using wet ‘n’ dry wouldn’t have worked.

Julie

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

For those wishing to make their own “castings” of name plates Then foundry lettering down to 1/8″ is available from John Burn Castings, previously known as John Burn & Co. The commonest type of fonts are flat face or sharp face. There is a Roman style with serifs for fancy stuff. The lettering has a good draft angle so that it will release from the sand if being used for their intended purpose but can be glued to a background and painted if that serves the purpose. They are made in white metal,brass or plastic. The company are pattern making suppliers of some 40 years standing. I first dealt with them 30 years ago and they were very helpful, though there is a minimum charge now.

I speak only as a very satisfied customer.  Noel.

PS letters are available up to 4″ in some styles.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

That’s an impressive result.

I’m not in any position to know the answer myself, but how viable would it be to create a plaque like that not by casting but by relief engraving it from brass plate using a smallish CNC engraver/mill (i.e. similar to Julie’s approach)?

I can see there is texturing on the background, which would presumably complicate things for CNC engraving, but, assuming that kind of texturing were not needed, is doing this kind of job by CNC engraving a viable alternative to casting, or would it be significantly more time-consuming and expensive?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Those “Nattie” ones are done on my CNC, ideally you wnat a high speed spindle as th ecutters needed to get in to the inner parts of letters like G and S need to be quite small. Took a long time on mine with a 5000rpm spindle and I think 0.3mm top to the cutter.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

It looks like it was more than worth the effort with the CNC, Jason, and the same can be said of Julie’s work.

I’ve “fond” memories of those 0.3mm sword-like cutters. The most ambitious I’ve been with them was using them on my Proxxon MF70 to engrave the two brass strips in the image that are reproductions of 284/R and 285/R seen in the screenshot taken from a bookbinders’ tool maker’s catalogue. The other brass strips in the pic were easy to machine with a standard 1mm milling cutter.

The last picture shows the sorts of tools I’m still hoping one day to be able to produce; I’ve been nibbling round the edges of doing so for longer than I can remember. One day when my round-the-clock care commitments cease,  I hope I will have the chance to attempt this sort of thing in earnest.

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