On Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 12:40:29 AM UTC-5, whit3rd wrote:
On Tuesday, December 13, 2016 at 7:53:51 AM UTC-8, rangerssuck wrote:
I am making prototypes of a new product. The case is made of aluminum plate, approximately 4" x 1" x 3/16". I have engraved a test piece and it worked very well, but:

* Due to the complexity and fine detail of the engraving, I can only go to about .0005" depth with a .1mm x 10° bit.


Two ideas:
1 anodize color on the whole piece, and then laser-etch your design.
2 etch, then pour dragon's blood (this is a resin available in micro-beads) over it,
and tilt to allow all the resin not trapped to escape. Bake (this will fill the etched
surface with the resin). Now, anodize normally, with whatever color additive you like.
Finally, dissolve away the dragon's blood.

Dragon's blood, huh? According to Wikipedia, it's good for everything from violin finishes to voodoo. Sorta like a Swiss army knife. I will be checking this out.

But for proto purposes, this is a whole lot of steps, including a trip to a plating shop, which I'm hoping to avoid.