Dark colored enclosures. Now what?

[blackieNYC]

These dark colored enclosures look so good! I buy them and then can't figure out how to do any labeling or artwork. Because I have no idea what the hell Im doing.  I have clear decal stock, which is likely to be worthless on this current dark maroon box, I have decal stock with a white background, which I think will become somewhat transparent and let a lot of milky-looking maroon through, no?  I have some photo paper also.
I recently put some adhesive backed clear stock on top of a yellow enclosure with just black type. It sucks. The black looks grey, and my clear coating layers (what did I do wrong here?) looked and felt so horrible compared to the unsprayed bottom of the enclosure, that I had to clear coat that too.
Really an awful job. Hammond's pre-colored enclosures have just enough of a mottled finish that the adhesive backed clear stock had faint, milky looking bubbles that I could not squeegee away. But sanding the finish just took me so very far from the nice finish I had bought.
Maybe I should just do some hand painting. A shaky and small job, but at least both the colors and finish will look nice. Is there a paint that would adhere well to the Hammond finish without requiring layers of clear coat? I would think that hand painting will be a little bumpy, and fine sanding (I have carbonundrum and several 450 and 600 fine papers) would screw up the hand painting. Trying to sell a pedal or two. By the time I get to this point, I am "so over" the pedal I'm close to just using stickers or a sharpie.

neither box-baking oven nor etching are possibilities in my particular apartment situation.

[vigilante397]

Is there a trophy shop nearby? Many shops will do engraving on just about anything for a very reasonable price, and in my opinion engraving (especially laser engraving) on a powdercoated enclosure is pretty much the coolest finishing job you can get.

[jimilee]

I use white water slide paper in these situations

[davent]

I've painted a white shadow on a black box and then used the usual waterslides, handlettered with a lining pen and gouache paint, stencils.





dave

[midwayfair]

[blackieNYC]

Jon- I was hoping you'd chime in. Are you clear coating on top of your hand painting?  What is your process with enclosures?

I'd like to know more about davent's technique too.

[blackieNYC]

Laser engraving on powder coated aluminum? Do you have some pics?  I called a couple trophy places, they said they can't do it with a laser.  ?  I'll try others.

[davent]

For the white 'shadow' all i did was take a printout of the labeling, trace around each word leaving a bit of space. Used the drawing to cut the hole in a piece of masking tape, stuck the masking tape to the enclosure where the decal was to go, sprayed the hole white  (then a bit  of green), clearcoated then the decal was applied over the white shadow. Early effort with an airbrush trying to do a fade to the white edges but didn't have the skills to make that happen.

The big Savage Croaker was just a stencil cut with an xacto knife from frisket film.

For hand lettering with whaterever paint or ink is around, my best results so far have been with a lining/ruling pen, (takes me lot's of practice to get acceptable results). Also mess with a diy popcan pen and other carriers but so far inconsistent results.


dave

[armdnrdy]

I've entertained the idea of purchasing a vinyl stencil cutting machine to make stencils to paint light colored lettering on dark colored enclosures.

There are a few models that are reasonably priced and cut fine detailed work.

http://www.underacherrytree.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-smallest-cameo-cut.html

[vigilante397]

Laser engraving on powder coated aluminum? Do you have some pics?

Pretty much anything Pickdropper does is a perfect example. I can't remember who said they used a trophy shop. I use a regular CNC machine, not as clean looking as the lasers in my opinion.

[thermionix]

As far as hand painting goes, I've heard that automotive pin-striping paint will adhere to just about anything.  Obviously it's made to be used on fully cured factory car finishes.  I've seen good results on poly-finished guitars.  Haven't tried it myself, but considering it.  What does Z. Vex use?

[nosamiam]

Paint markers work very well. The ink is opaque, really durable, and compatible with everything I've used it over (bare aluminum, enamel, and powdercoat).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=paint+marker&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Apaint+marker

The downside is that the tips are pretty wide. You can use an X-Acto blade to shave the tip down and make it skinnier but it's hard to get it ultra-fine. Even with a shaved tip, it is only as good as your hand is steady. The potential is there to do some really good work, but it would take someone more skillful than I am.

**edit: I should add, I've only used Sharpie brand "fine" tip markers. They aren't very fine at all but they were all I could find locally. In the Amazon search link there are some sharper pointed Sharpies and also some from other brands. Maybe those would work better.