etched aluminium enclosure - ideas for filling the holes?

[loscha]

Nice one!
I'm very impressed such simple fixins from Jaycar could produce such a feat.
Do you have an approximate dollar value that it cost you to do!

mad props: Loscha (you know, that Edward guy Shelby knows)

[darron]

Nice one!
I'm very impressed such simple fixins from Jaycar could produce such a feat.
Do you have an approximate dollar value that it cost you to do!

mad props: Loscha (you know, that Edward guy Shelby knows)

about $10 (au) for a box, $12 for a switch to go in it. about $1 per jack. pnp was around $35 or so for 5 pages. it took me a whole page of stuffing around to get it that right, and even then it's not good enough. at least i know how to improve. fc was $35 or so for 500g of powder which will last me a long time. it's shelby's birthday tomorrow (thursday) by the way...

[scaesic]

i want to somehow stain or spray the engraved area and leave the rest with a shiney finish. does anyone have any ideas how to do this? i'm thinking if nobody can suggest something, then next time i will just use thinner lines...

i dunno if this has been mentioned already, but cant you just paint the whole thing as it is, then sand the surface to removed paint from the higher part of non-etched metal.

[darron]

i want to somehow stain or spray the engraved area and leave the rest with a shiney finish. does anyone have any ideas how to do this? i'm thinking if nobody can suggest something, then next time i will just use thinner lines...

i dunno if this has been mentioned already, but cant you just paint the whole thing as it is, then sand the surface to removed paint from the higher part of non-etched metal.

that's what i just tried. last time i tried though (and a bit this time) it took off too much and was eating into the areas i wanted black while sanding. i think this is because of the unevenness (spelling on that?) of the etching. some parts were much deaper since i didn't bath the box in fc, i just dabbed it on over a couple of hourse. next time i ecpect some much better results to show you all!

[idlechatterbox]

That's a great looking job, and nice touch with the LED eye. It looks like you solved your problem good enough, but since I've gotten  a lot of good advice here, I'll throw an additional suggestion that might help you or someone else. Who knows.

A few people suggested the paint in the grooves method, followed by a good wiping with a cloth or paper towel. That will work in some cases, but there are other ways too. I make (sort of) woodcut prints, and a squeegee is very useful to wipe off the ink on top and leave just the ink in the goove. Metal, like that used on your stompbox, might actually work better than the squeegee does on wood. I've also seen people do something very similar using a fine cloth (like a hankerchief?) pulled tightly against a credit card.

Personally, my approach would be to apply some type of resist to the "clean" metal that you want to remain unpainted. A wax  candle would work. I'd then go over the entire thing with a roller (called a "brayer" but that doesn't matter) full of water-based printing ink. Then I'd wipe it with a very stiff squeegee and tidy up the other areas. I'd then spray the whole thing with clear finish. I've done something similar on brushed aluminum face plates. Just some suggestions. 

[Peter Snowberg]

Beautiful work!