Repairing scratches on faceplate?

[CRamsey]

Hi Guys,

Has anyone found a good way to minimize the appearance of scratches on these brushed aluminum faceplates? I have a few scratches around my headphone jack I'd like to fix. It seems like I could use an emory board or sandpaper and carefully pull along the grain of the faceplate and coarsely "buff out" a scratch. Anyone here tried that? :scratch2:

Thanks for any advice.

CR

 

[diddlybopper]

Try some automotive polishing compound,much less abrasive than what you propose.

 

[EchoWars]

Sanding on the faceplate will make look 10x worse, as you'll remove the anodized coating on the aluminum.

Live with it...they cannot be removed.

 

[CRamsey]

Live with it...

Yeah, I guess I'll get used to it. It's not that bad.

Thanks, CR

 

[Fred Longworth]

Think of them as "beauty marks."

Fred Longworth

 

[alexkerhead]

What someone can so is grind out the silkscreening to make the letters indented and take the faceplate somewhere to be refinished and reanodized and then use some black marker or paint to fill in the indented lettering.

That way you get fully retored faceplates and engraved lettering. Two for one.
Refinishing and reanodizing should be pretty inexpensive, around $50 or so i guess at a good machine shop.

Engraving will be time consuming, but worth it if you want to keep a peice.

 

[AJXD]

Yikes to engraving. That would take so long!! I have a 2330B someone engraved their name and SSN onto... and I'd love to replace the face, but a nice 2330B faceplate? Yeh right on finding that one.

 

[Fisherdude]

What someone can so is grind out the silkscreening to make the letters indented and take the faceplate somewhere to be refinished and reanodized and then use some black marker or paint to fill in the indented lettering.

That way you get fully retored faceplates and engraved lettering. Two for one.
Refinishing and reanodizing should be pretty inexpensive, around $50 or so i guess at a good machine shop.

Engraving will be time consuming, but worth it if you want to keep a peice.

If that estimate includes engraving, anodizing, and refinishing, you left off a zero. At least.

 

[alexkerhead]

I implied doing the engraving youself.


However, you can goto a laser cutting place and they can engrave the face where the silkscreen is, or even take a scan where the silkscreen is and reprint the silkscreen later for about $60.

I guesstimate if you looked good enough you could find a way todo it for under a hundred bucks.
Sign cutter places can scan a template or the original faceplate and enhrave from that for a descent price.
I will check with a friend at a sign makers shop, they have a laser cutter and I will get a quote for scanning and engraving.

 

[kcollins4]

Very interesting! I'll be watching to see what kind of prices you find.:thmbsp:

 

[Fisherdude]

I implied doing the engraving youself.

Oh, well, THAT, as they say, changes everything!

...However, you can goto a laser cutting place and they can engrave the face where the silkscreen is, or even take a scan where the silkscreen is and reprint the silkscreen later for about $60...

Ooh, that's interesting. In my other life, I collect old shortwave radios, with silkscreened front panels. These frequently get the lettering worn off, and having new silkscreening done is always a challenge. I might have to look into this...

 

[alexkerhead]

Oh, well, THAT, as they say, changes everything!



Ooh, that's interesting. In my other life, I collect old shortwave radios, with silkscreened front panels. These frequently get the lettering worn off, and having new silkscreening done is always a challenge. I might have to look into this...

I can imagine laster engraving being cheaper than new silkscreen, because of the abundance of sign cutters with laser cutters or cutter machines.

A laser cutter could do a whole faceplate in a few minutes.

Of course, the setting will need to be a bit lower if you are using a thin steel faced shortwave, as the steel won't hold up as well as the thick aluminum.

Only hard part, is we have to color in the engravings ourselves.
I might use different colors if I try it, but black would certainly be the norm.

 

[Strawman]

Think of them as "beauty marks."

Fred Longworth

Some of my stuff has battle scars, no trailer queens in my stable.

 

[OscarEmmy]

Only hard part, is we have to color in the engravings ourselves.
I might use different colors if I try it, but black would certainly be the norm.[/QUOTE]

That might not be too hard - it might be possible to use a kind of 'reverse brass rubbing' process, flooding the letters with paint then polishing the surface with a flat (firm) lint-free cloth dampened with thinner, until the surface is completely clean of all traces of paint. You'd need a really steady hand for painting into the engraving - which I don't have - last time I soldered a component into a Marantz receiver lamp unit I accidentally touched the ancient tuning string which snapped instantly (surprise surprise). Replacing that added 4 hours and a trip to the store to complete what should have been a 10-minute job

 

[alexkerhead]

Nice idea, you could just flood the face with paint before you take it to get polished and reanodized.

Thanks.

 

[AJXD]

alex: Where would I go to find a laser cutter? What type of shops?

 

[alexkerhead]

Sign shops these days generally should have one.


I've been a bit under the weather, so I haven't been anywhere to check, but I am sure a higher end sign shop will have one.