On 01/29/2013 06:20 AM, John Rehwinkel wrote: >> The research that I did for stainless enchants all seem like they are >> processes that would require a fume hood. Most of the processes containing >> HCl and HNO3. I do not have a fume hood :( > I'll go chase down what Micromark sells in their kit, which specifically > states it works with stainless. I doubt they sell stuff that needs a fume > hood without warning people ahead of time. Please do. It would be nice to make these at home or in the back yard. > >> Although, I did find a howto site where they just used a electrolyte. I >> wonder if that process could be turbo charges to etch through... > That's a thought. It's possible that adding an electrical current to the > flow would both accelerate the process and might even minimize undercutting. > > I did some research a while back on photoetching services, and found one that > will etch from the front, the back, or both at the customer's option. They > point out that this gives a profile to the etched object. I figured I'd etch > from the back for nixie cathodes, so the front (facing the viewer) surface > was the largest. Since we'd be etching pretty thin material, I doubt it > would be a big problem. That sounds like a good approach. > >> Otherwise, if anybody would like to attempt etching, and would like a >> enchant mask, and you live in the US, I'll be happy to whip one up on my >> vinyl cutter and ship you one/several. It shouldn't take more than a few min >> to make the stencil. I'll be around the machine Thursday. > That's an interesting idea. I have a vinyl cutter too. My first thought was > that the vinyl adhesive is really tough, and would bend and tear the delicate > metal, but then it occurred to me that there's probably a way to dissolve > away the vinyl. I expect there are solvents out there that would do so while > leaving metal untouched. That's what I am thinking. I have etched copper using vinyl cut on a standard vinyl cuter. I have also gotten surprisingly good results.
As for removing the vinyl, I think you are right, a solvent would probably be the way to go (this metal is quite thin). I believe acetone works on vinyl quite well. > > - John > Next problem we would have is how to get/make the little ceramic separators for the nixie stackups. maybe somebody here has though of this already. Michael- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
