Usually, in a home workshop, tabletop machines are not of their first youth. Often they have missing or damaged nameplates with factory data or operating modes. It’s a small thing, but it spoils the appearance of the machine and makes its image unfinished. Fortunately, nameplates can be restored and there is an easy way to do this.
Will need
- Aluminum plate 1.2 mm thick;
- lead plate
- mirror image of the nameplate on paper;
- aluminum wire
- alcohol or acetone
- small containers
- table salt
- screws – 4 pcs. etc.
The process of making nameplates for a machine with your own hands
We start by searching for the missing sign on the Internet, adjusting the brightness and contrast if necessary, and always in a mirror image.
We print the find on a laser printer in the required scale and maximum resolution with the toner-saving functions disabled, so that the print is as bold as possible.
The base of the plate, an aluminum plate 1.2 mm thick, is treated with coarse Scotch Brite or fine-grained sandpaper P240 or P320 to make its surface rough.
After treatment, clean the surface with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol or acetone.
We place the image on the cleaned surface and bend the edges of the paper to avoid displacement. We iron the paper with the image on the outside using an old iron heated to 205 degrees Celsius.
Then place the plate wrapped in paper in hot water for 5 minutes to soak it. After this, carefully remove the paper from the plate.
Minor damage to the toner on the label can be covered with nail polish using a toothpick.
To protect the back side of the sign from etching, seal it with tape and trim off the excess with scissors.
We carry out the etching in a container of water, in which we dissolve table salt in the required amount.
We immerse the sign on the aluminum wire mount into the solution. We place the cathode - a lead plate with holes - on top of the support frame.
We connect the minus of the power source to the cathode, the plus to the plate and supply a current of 6-8 A.
Periodically remove the plate from the solution to control the etching depth. In our case, the process took a little more than 1 hour.
We wash the plate in clean water using a toothbrush.
Using acetone, remove the remaining toner from the plate, and remove the tape from the back side.
We go over the front side with Scotch Brite to slightly smooth out the roughness in the etching areas.
To develop the image, rub acrylic paint into the pores formed during etching. Remove excess paint with a napkin.
In place of the serial number, which is reproduced using a stamp, we apply the date of restoration using a CNC machine.
We cut off the excess metal along the edges of the plate with a metal saw, and remove the sharp edges with a chamfer knife.
All that remains is to attach the nameplates to the machine with screws.
