Guide Request - Etching/frosting

[Teebor]

Anyone have a guide on how to etch perspex or make your own etche's to stick on?

Possibly even some sort of way of frosting perspex?

Otherwise I shall have to do it!!!! heheh

Teebor

[twistednet]

I can make a few suggestions.

I know there are plastic stickie sheets that you could buy, print out, cut up and then apply. Sorta like overhead sheets but with an adhesive on one side.

Or if you wanted the frosting method, find some thin cardboard, probably more like mattboard or museum board, cut out your design and use it as a stencil to spray the frosting. I would actually prefer it that way because then you can properly align the stencil rather than whoops, its off by 10 degrees.

And if you really must physically etch, the dremel has an extension bit where you can hold it like a pencil (more like a thick pen) and use the fine bits for etching. Ive done this on wood and you need to do lots of sanding later on to make it look smooth. oh yeah and also a tremendous amount of patience with it.

[Teebor]

I am not sure I have that much patience for dremeling a whole sheet of perspex :)

If I wanted a frosted sheet I guess I could attack it with sand paper. I'm not sure how it would look though.

Maybe I can have a stab later this week, I have spare perspex.

Teebor

[DaveMac]

You can buy a frosting spray from B&Q etc.
Or you can buy printable window stickers sheets and make your own stick on ones.

[twistednet]

dont take sand paper to it :( oi...

it turns out looking more like rice paper or something.

if you want the entire sheet to have that frosted look, buy the can of frosting at a crafts center (or B&Q like mac says, wutever that may be). Or.... if you have access to a sandblaster :D

[Leeum]

Sanding it is ok but if you want consistency it's best to use an orbital sander rather than do it by hand :D

[Kumo]

i've used sandpaper to "frost" a draw and it look ok. I have a guide of how i etched my window. But it is in spanish. I think i can translate it and post here.

[Teebor]

That would be pretty cool if you could Kumo.

Thanks

Teebor

[Kumo]

I'll try it. Give me a couple of days.

[Kumo]

Etching plexy: (my very own guide)

Once you have decided what you want in the plexy, print it. As you going to etch the draw inside the window, print the draw "mirrored".

Don't remove the protective paper form the plexy and fix your desing with tape to the plexy.

Cut carefuly with a cutter or xacto knive the areas to etch and remove the paper pieces. I protected the others areas with tape, since the weak of the paper.

http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logosml.jpg
http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logo3sml.jpg

In the following pics, the first steps of etching. To reach that point, i "painted" carefully the area to etch with the back of the cutter. As it was a marker. First in one direction and the in the other until you get the desired level of opacity. l

http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logo4sml.jpg
http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logo5sml.jpg

For the letters i only used the cutter for the details, the main work was did with a dremel bit.

http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/Logo2sml.jpg
http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logo6sml.jpg

To finish the work, put some lights (in the side of the plexy, for example) to light up your desing.

http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/logo7sml.jpg
http://www.kusanagiweb.com/mods/files/Rayarplexi/finalsml.jpg

The sand paper / Frost:

(I have some pics that i'll try to post later.)

The work is similar. But the desing have to be bigger.

You have to protect the "non-frosteable" areas better and cut the others with a cutter. Then sand with a light sandpaper. Apply several sanding until you get the desired frost level. Don't go for a only pass sanding.

A rough sandpaper will scratch the plexy, so use a fine grain instead.


I know that this is "weak" guide thaks to my poor english, but i hope it help you a little (and you understand it, of course).

[Teebor]

Thanks Kumo,

Thats pretty smart, I was concerned about the difficulty of it to be honest but I see where you are going at.

I think for safety's sake I will practice on some spare perspex first, as I want to etch a design on the angel eye res, and if that goes wrong then I might as well forget it.

Thanks again.

[Kumo]

Well. If you have any question, don't be worry about ask :) i'll try to answer you the best i can.

[Lemmingzappa]

Ive done this to my current side window but in reverse.
I stuck on letters to my window and the sprayed over the entire thing with frosted glass spray and then peeled the letters off, it looks great :D

[|Slackster|]

Ive done this to my current side window but in reverse.
I stuck on letters to my window and the sprayed over the entire thing with frosted glass spray and then peeled the letters off, it looks great :D

Pics tbh :lol:

[Lemmingzappa]

Pics tbh :lol:

will post some tommorow, just to let you know that you might see a couple of scratches across the window because I had it off for a long time and it got a bit damaged, but nevermind im getting a stacker sometime soon :)