kkrell wrote:Garry,
Maybe some gold Rub n' Buff...
Thanks for the suggestion, Kevin. I would use a gold, or silver rub for a design etching like the one on the guitar in that link you posted but for my own name on my flutes, I prefer the appearance of an understated, plain stamp. That way, people can look for my name and the model of the flute and find it if they want to.
In any case, the gold or silver rub might not last well on a delrin surface, due to the difficulties with adherence.
It works superbly on Blackwood set at 30% power and 30% depth. I get as deep of cut as the more expensive laser. I will test it on Delrin later and post examples of each. 1.6watt is sufficient for sure!
There are gold, silver and other colored embossing powders that can be used when making these cuts. I just got some yesterday to experiment with. I might have to tilt my entire rig 90 degrees so that the laser is pointing straight down and the work up given the nature of Gravity.
I took the day off yesterday to enjoy some stunning weather and do some paleontological fieldwork west of Port Angeles on a boulder strewn beach. It was fun and a good test of the new knee joints. Today and tomorrow I'll make up for it out in the workshop.
I looked for some Delrin in my workshop but didn't find any so I am not able to test it. Checking on the web it does laser engrave with the CO2 lasers. The blue light lasers used on the Laserpecker might work. You can contact them and ask. Blackwood cuts very well - generally the darker the material the better the cut. They actually supply an ink to use on light colored plastics tso that they will cut, rather than simply reflect. I used a Boxwood example simply because it is easy to photograph and see. So here are some blackwood examples. The one on the left has been cleaned and refinished.
I am also curious what this will do at even higher magnifications and ordered a few inexpensive laboratory grade lenses I found on eBay with focal lengths around 75 and 50mm.
Since my original topic was sort of a digest I had some other things to share. I recently sold a very lovely Rudall, Rose and Carte flute to one of the Chiffers here. It required a little bit of conservation work including filling a check (as opposed to a crack) that didn't go all the way to the bore in the head joint. Robert Bigio told me of Loctite 480 which is perfect for this. Its black and gap filling. One carefully fills the crevice until you have a bead that is proud of the flute surface. One then brings it down with a 6/0 file (Michael Hubbert suggested this) and then scrapes it using a razor blade as a scraper. Microfinishing sanding sticks are used for the final smoothing, being careful starting with the file to not remove any of the original wood. Finally the surface is revarnished. I used a 1704 shellac varnish but found that my modern varnish of linseed oil with a drop of superglue was adequate.
Before I sent this flute off I collected 8 pages of data and hundreds of detailed photos. I want to make a copy of this flute some day.
A few new flute projects in the offing as of this morning. I won a pair of flutes missing their head joints on eBay. One of these was misidentified in the listing as an oboe. Instead its a 13 or 14 eyed Austrian flute that originally played down to the Bb. There is some interesting engraving or stamping on the rings and the pad cups. I have another 13 key Austrian flute and will use the head from that one as a template for this one.
The other flute was a mid-century London flute by Clementi. The keys are like the cast keys found on many other mid-century flutes including Rudall and Rose and others. According top Robert Bigio many of these were all cast by a certain Mrs. Best. We know very little about her otherwise. I am planning to use the keys on this flute and off of another as patterns for casting that I. get done locally. I hope to be able to offer 6 and 8 keyed unfinished key sets, with instructions on how to finish these including springing, for other makers to use, under a brand name of "Mrs. Best's Keys". Eventually other keys based on other flutes such as the French 5 key and even my own keys will be available. These will hit the market late Summer, assuming my key casting service hasn't been affected by the Pandemic.
Tell us something.: I'm a historian and the author of "The Beat Cop:Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music," published by the University of Chicago in 2022. I live in Arlington VA and play the flute sincerely but not well
I'll have pictures when the eBay flutes arrive. For the Rudall, Rose and Carte I have several pictures to sort - it will be a while before I post any of these.
I did find out more about laser engraving plastics:
Delrin sort of just melts into a mess. Yet another reason why I never use it.
Acrylic: the laser engravers love this stuff and it engraves well. I have actually tried this. I have some cast acrylic rod to make some see-through instruments some day.
PVC: NEVER LASER ENGRAVE IT!!!! It releases Chlorine, and this will etch the coated surface of the optics!
Casey Burns wrote:I did find out more about laser engraving plastics:
Delrin sort of just melts into a mess...
Black delrin can be engraved by laser alright. I've always had my delrin barrels engraved by laser and watched the machine doing it several times but had concluded it would need to be the more powerful CO2 type. The information you were looking at may relate to white, or opaque plastics, which this minilaser won't engrave easily, if at all. I'll check with the manufacturer of the Laserpecker to see if it has enough power to do what I want. Your blackwood samples came out well anyway and thanks for your informative review.
Directly on metal no. There are some metal "inks" that you can apply and it will etch a kind of deposit on the metal. Thermark is one of them. Frightfully expensive too.
Thanks! Guess I have to use something else then, should I ever get the idea to sell any whistles or flutes. But that looks rather unlikely at the moment anyway. No big market in Germany for tin whistles or keyless flutes and the expensive shipping because of the virus would eliminate any "profit" when selling to people in other countries. Looks like I'll simply keep making them for myself.
