How to get letters on metal?

[az]

Question to all the DIY and metal guys here:

How would one go about getting letters on a metal faceplate? Cheap, relatively wear resistant, negative (white text on black anodized), symbols...

This is a purely theoretical question, I have just wondered for a while now

AZ

[gt40]

cheapest way would be to use rub down transfers.
they come on a plastic sheet, you place the letter where you want it and rub over top of it - Voila! it transfers to the metal/plastic/paper

something like these

should be available in electronic store or hobby stores.

[Wombat]

Transfers usually wear off pretty easily, though, don't they?

[KvHagedorn]

I think they use acid etching sometimes..

[Brian Ellis]

There is one way which will work, with care, using a laser printer, but will require some experimentation. However, it would be much easier to do it black on white, rather than white on black.

Firstly, print out a mirror image of the text you want. You will need to find the ideal paper: it should be semi-glossy but not hot-laminated, so that you can feel the raised imprint. You then carefully iron the image onto the black anodized aluminium, wirh an ordinary domestic iron set to "linen", making sure the aluminium reaches the max temp over the whole surface.

Let it cool down and then soak it in water for a few hours, so that you can gently rub off the paper, leaving only the letters on the surface. If necessary, retouch any pinholes with a slightly thinned nail varnish. You can then immerse the aluminium in a 10% caustic soda solution to attack the anodisation until it shows colourless and rinse thoroughly.

Alternatively, a slightly more sophisticated method is to use a photoresist coating and expose it to a UV source through a negative or a positive, develop and etch in the caustic soda as before.

More sophisticated again: coat a FRESHLY anodised surface (within about an hour) with photoresist, expose and develop, place in black dye, strip the resist then seal the anodisation in boiling water for 30 minutes (this is a simplification of the commercial process).

[gt40]

Originally posted by Wombat
Transfers usually wear off pretty easily, though, don't they?

they do have coatings available to increase wear resistance (see link posted above)

[KRSESQ]

Use adhesive lettering as a mask and sand blast it. Hardware stores often carry sand blasting kits.

Kevin