Shopsmith Forums

Well, don't really know what is off topic for Community, but it's not ShopSmith related... My other hobby is sandcarving and glass engraving. I made this mirror for a friend for a Christmas present, as a wall decoration for his rathskeller. I took an 11x14" mirror, applied a mask to the back, and etched through the silver on the back, then painted the glass black, leaving only the lettering left in silver. I think it really turned out sharp.

Edit: OOPs, sorry I posted this in the General Woodworking instead of the Community forum. My bad...

Tom - we have found that nothing (excluding profanity and crude stuff) is off topic in this part of the forum.

Your sand carving hobby is nifty! That Mirror and your masking work are sensational!:D

Hi,

Looks like you know what you are doing. It turned out well!

When you say etching do you mean chemical or sandblasting?

Ed

Wow! That was some masking job! I am thinking that cutting the masking into that design was the hardest part.

Great work, Tom. You are an atrist.

charlese wrote:Tom - we have found that nothing (excluding profanity and crude stuff) is off topic in this part of the forum.

Your sand carving hobby is nifty! That Mirror and your masking work are sensational!:D

Chuck,
I am saddened to say that, according to a PM I received recently that included a threat, there is at least one person on this forum that thinks they can dictate what is off topic in this part of the forum.

curiousgeorge wrote:Great work, Tom. You are an atrist.




Chuck,
I am saddened to say that, according to a PM I received recently that included a threat, there is at least one person on this forum that thinks they can dictate what is off topic in this part of the forum.

What kind of idiot thinks they can threaten another person on this forum. I sure hope it was not a SS employee 'doing his job'! What did it (the idiot) say to threaten you????

Send IT a PM message back to GET REAL!(or something more appropriate).

Yeah sometimes we get side-tracked, but so what!

reible wrote:Hi,

Looks like you know what you are doing. It turned out well!

When you say etching do you mean chemical or sandblasting?

Ed

Ed, it is sandblasting, I used 150 grit Aluminum Oxide at 40psi.

a1gutterman wrote:Wow! That was some masking job! I am thinking that cutting the masking into that design was the hardest part.

Tim, the masking isn't THAT bad... I have 2 ways of creating a mask, depending upon the complexity of the design and the depth of etch I want/need. One is a photographic mask, basically anything I can print in black/white on a printer, I can make a transparency to expose a photomask. The photo emulsion is exposed with an Ultraviolet light unit and then developed under high pressure warm water. After that it is adhered to the item to be sandblasted. I can get great detail with photo emulsions even creating halftone photos), but they don't stand up to long periods of blasting so the depth of etch with photo emulsions is somewhat limited.

The second method is with cut vinyl or rubber mask. I have a Roland vinyl sign cutter/plotter that I can cut 3mil sign vinyl to use as a mask or if I really need depth (like a grave headstone type etch), I can cut 35mil rubber mask with it. The only limitation with cut vinyl/rubber is you can't get real small details (letters less than 1/4" for example) and it takes time to "weed" the mask (removing all the blast areas after cutting the mask). The mirror I did with 3mil sign vinyl as a mask.