Engraved enclosure fascia

[RobCee]

I have been learning how to make my engraving better and (finally) putting together an enclosure to get the electronics off my desk.
Thought I would share, so here you go.

First, a little teaser image

Small teaser image of the finished product

67 Teaser.jpg (15.12 KiB) Viewed 1883 times

Setup on the SO2 and looking good

WIP

61 Enclosure text.jpg (161.41 KiB) Viewed 1883 times

All carved and ready for some experimentation

Ready for post-processing

62 Enclosure face carved.jpg (235.2 KiB) Viewed 1883 times

[RobCee]

This next part is where the magic happens!

The material is MDF, so I applied four coats of sanding sealer (shellac) and then a coat of hard wax to the entire front face.
This was then polished to a good shine before doing anything more.

Sealing coats applied

63 Sanding sealer applied.jpg (232.64 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

The engraved detail was picked out using an acrylic paint (burnt umber) which was liberally added to the grooves and then most of the excess was removed with a plastic straight edge (used at an angle so it doesn't pull out too much paint).
This was left to dry for a few hours (or overnight)

Fill engraving with paint

64 Filled engraving.jpg (266.57 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

After the paint has dried, using more hard wax, the 'paint on wax' can be removed by polishing the flat surfaces with a thin cloth wrapped around a flat piece of wood.
The mild solvents in the wax and the friction from buffing remove the excess paint.
This leaves you with:

Polish the excess off

65 Polished and ready for install.jpg (218.27 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

[RobCee]

Finally you can install everything and stand back to enjoy your work!

It's a thing of beauty (almost)

66 Installed and ready to rock.jpg (162.07 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

[Brian Stone]

That's one of the best looking control boards I've seen here yet. Nice work!

[Woodworker]

Very nice, crisp sharp line definition. The wax appears to be a good choice.

[twforeman]

That's beautiful. Nice work!

[RobCee]

As a summary, here is the process:

1. Engrave, carve, make your pattern
2. Seal the wood with sanding sealer/shellac - 3/4 coats
3. Apply a hard wax and buff the whole piece well
4. Rub acrylic paint into the detail areas (electric toothbrush works great)
5. Remove excess paint using a plastic card scraper - be quick as the acrylic can dry fast when it's thin
6. Wait for the acrylic to dry properly 2-3 hours usually
7. Re-apply wax and buff off using a cloth wrapped around a block of wood (stops it trying to pull the detail out and helps remove any stubborn bits)
8. Step back and admire your work!

For a colour, I find Burnt Umber one of the best for contrast in lighter woods.

[cdndave]

I like the LEDs mounted to the enclosure - how are they wired in the back? What is the source for the LEDs? Specifically - how are the limit switches wired to the control board? I'd love to see snapshots of the inside of the enclosure

Great work....

[RobCee]

The internal details for my electronics are all on here, but a bit spread out. I will try and put them into a single thread that covers the bits you need to know, but it may be a week or so until I actually get around to it.

I designed a circuit for Hall Sensors as limit switches and tried a few ways to integrate it into the Arduino/GShield environment (external strip-board, arduino proto-shield) and there is a thread about the strip board here and the arduino shield here.

I finally got around to working out how to interface my VFD into the chain so that I can speed control it successfully. This took more electronics and was great fun too. I designed a board and had it made in China, then interfaced it into the stack of boards and it works (mainly) the way I expected... Here is the thread about that part.