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does anyone know a supplier of embossed aluminium plate?
Does anyone know of a supplier, or can anyone here, emboss an aluminium plate… kind of like the VIN plate on a car? (And before anyone says, its not for me, I’ve not suddenly gone into ringing cars or anything :lol1: )
Cheers, Dewi
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6 Replies
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Dewi,
Does it have to be embossed? Couldn’t you get it engraved? Just as durable but looks better and you’d be able to get it done locally.
Guy
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Unfortunately it has to be embossed, customer very specific about what they’re after 😕 I suggested engraving, but got a nope straight away.
Cheers, Dewi
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do they need one or lots?
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Not sure on the quantity at the moment to be honest Andrew, they’ve just asked whether I can do it, or if I have a contact who can do it. All I was going to do was pass the number onto them.
Cheers, Dewi
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At the risk of my first post making myself look daft, why can’t the aluminium plate be routed so as to leave the lettering with an embossed effect? With a correct application of a microdrop lube, ali will route nicely. The other option that springs to mind is to fabricate a press and using a thin ali sheet, press the letters from behind. Obviously this is not everyones idea of helpful, and to be honest I have no idea what size sign you need, but it would indeed be possible.
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Hiya Kong
You need embossing dies for this , a male and female die with the clearance equal to or greater then the thickness of ally you embossing , and you need a serious press. Expensive to do unless there is quantity. Bass relief (engraving the background with letters standing up) is not quite the same as embossing , in embossing plate thickness stays the same. It would take ages to reverse engrave and you will get milling marks on it. If you have a vinyl cutter you can easily etch the ally to give this effect. (or engrave inwards) in a very short time.
Here’s how.
If the ally is anodised , its not this easy , but heres how for unanodized. The theory is to coat the metal with a resist and the exposed eareas get eaten away with whats called a mordant (can be acid , ferric chloride , caustic soda)
Clean the ally with a scotchpad and soapy water to get down to bare metal. Then cut your vinyl and weed away what you want to be etched , apply the vinyl to the ally , mask off ALL exposed areas like the back , the edges etc , you can probably use plastic based parcel tape or vinyl scraps for this. Acid and caustic are pretty violent chemicals and majorly dangerous , so dilute ferric chloride 2:1 (obtainable from just about any chemical co) will do. If you want to use acid , then dilute pool acid is fine , dilute about 3:1
NEVER pour water into acid , always pour the acid into water.
Use a nice pyrex dish (most kitchens have one 😉 immerse the plate and inspect occasionally. You will soon see the ally being eten away as it bubbles , have a big bucket of water handy to dilute the etch if it starts going exothermic , ie really starts to uncontrollably fizz and buble and gets hot.. This is NOT a process you do inside , this is NOT a process you do without gloves , safety googles and protective clothing. Ferric stains clothes orange and yellow and eats ALL metals (including the kitchen sink). Ferric and hydrochloric leave deposits in the bottom of the etched sections , thus caustic is actually the best to use for ally. You can do the same for brass and stainless steel. Once etched , wash off VERY well , strip the vinyl and masking and you can paint fill the etched sections etc.
If the etch runs into any unprotected areas or seeps in at the edges , it WILL etch the metal and you will have a ruined plate , so the masking is important.
You can achieve the same effect by screening with an acid resist ink instead of vinyl if you have production quantites.
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