Building an AR as a display piece on the wall...

I think the gag AR idea is going to work. The circuit boards, buttons, battery, and speaker runs about $7. So well within the "let just mess with someone" price range.
 
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A little morning etching. Another anodized lower, I don't remember who's this was... I think it came from MidwayUSA.

Pretty easy now. Just sand through the finish down to bare aluminum just where the etching will occur. Apply the stencil and mask off the excess. This is the safety selector markings on the left side. If you are using the DogFightInk stencils, use an X-acto knife to cut out the openings for the stops before attempting to apply the stencil. The oval holes will help align the stencil and get it to go down flat. Burnish the stencil before removing the top transfer sheet.

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The etch process is straight forward. Positive lead of the battery charger to the part, negative lead to the etching pad. I'm just using a block of wood with gauze wrapped around it. There is no need to press the gauze against the part. Just touch it to the area and hold it in place while the acid and current do the work.

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It will bubble away when the process gets going. The black residue is the aluminum that has been dissolved out of the area to being etched. I've come to use the color of the etch to decide when to stop. When the markings are good and black, I've gone deep enough into the metal.

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Peel off the masking tape and stencil. If you have any adhesive residue stuck to the metal, just dab it over and over with a wad of masking tape. The adhesive of the tape will remove the adhesive residue of the stencil. Much easier than trying to dissolve the residue with acetone.

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Then go over the etched lettering with a brass wire brush to clean out the aluminum residue and rinse with acetone.

Time to get ready for work, so that's it for the moment.
 
Pleased to see you are confident with your etching. It really that simple, anyone can do it. Do you plan to advance your skills by tackling larger projects maybe on a slide ? Or possibly trying your hand at bath method ?
 
Michele said:
Pleased to see you are confident with your etching. It really that simple, anyone can do it. Do you plan to advance your skills by tackling larger projects maybe on a slide ? Or possibly trying your hand at bath method ?
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Making progress on that front. Turns out a co-workers wife is into working with a vinyl cutter, so I'm negotiating access to having my own artwork done.

Some mundane stuff, like etching data plates for farm machinery and the like. But I do have a few gun-related projects in mind. A gag AR-15 made to look like our employer manufactured it, along with a 1911 slide (mark up the steel 80% to be a WWII Union Switch & Signal issue pistol) and barrel caliber markings for the remage barrels that don't line up above the wood-line.

More artistic stuff, well, we will see. As a kid I used to do the Tandy leather kits, so I kinda remember the patterns. 1911 slides are cheap and plentiful, so one of those might get sacrificed to the gods of etching.

For the moment, I'm just slogging my way through the 80% AR's... just in case we loose the fight for PMF's
 
Finally got a good finish out of the new Aluma-Hyde. Still sputters after a few sprays, but I have a shot glass of nozzles soaking in acetone. Just kept swapping can nozzles. Baked the finish this morning in the oven so I can reassemble it tonight.

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Little something different today. A few days ago I realized I had disturbed the holy ratio of hot dogs to buns. That state of equilibrium where the quantity of one necessary component is matched by the quantity of another. I had more lower receivers than I had uppers.

Well, this would not do! So while I continue searching for an old-school A2 carry handle upper, I will also need another M4 upper. Got a raw one, again from Tactical Machining in Deland. Arrived this morning, and got etched this afternoon. Just something simple to go with the Mega Gator lower.

Aside: Anybody else remember the days when every upper for sale was either an A1 or an A2? They were everywhere and cheap too. Oh well. I may have to accept that the best I'll be able to do is get a M4 upper and put the detachable carry handle on it, ala A4 style. I wonder if the NM rear sight assembly is still out there somewhere.

Reading up on the anodizing process. I might take a stab at anodizing aluminum on my own. Sure looks cheaper than Alodine 1200 (gawd that stuff has gotten expensive.)

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Michele said:
Pleased to see you are confident with your etching. It really that simple, anyone can do it. Do you plan to advance your skills by tackling larger projects maybe on a slide ? Or possibly trying your hand at bath method ?
Click to expand...

Ready to take on a new skill. I've got a Silhouette Cameo 4 as a loaner. Getting a crash course via you tube on how it functions. (Yeah, dusted off my daughter's old iMac to use as the guinea pig.... if I get it running using the Silhouette Studio software, I'll try it out on linux.)

Got my artwork ready... here goes nothing.
 
Michele said:
Silhouette is pretty easy. Wonā€™t be long till youā€™re printing etch stencils left n right. Yee ha ! Have fun
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I guess the first attempt was a fail. Really, more of a misunderstanding of what I was trying to do. The owner of the machine gave me a roll of Oramask 813. I didn't realize what that stuff was designed for. When I described what I was doing, she assumed I would be needing a low-tack paint stencil film. (I did give her a sample of the vinyl DogFightInk was using, but I guess she never looked at it.)

So, the machine did its thing and cut the roll-mark design just fine. But during the course of trying to weed out the cuts, it sortta dawned on me that there was no way this would ever stick to a lower. It barely could stick to it's own backing sheet. Now I know what this material is for and it isn't suited for etching.

Tomorrow morning, before work, I can stop at JoAnn fabrics (convenient, it's a block away) and they have rolls of permanent vinyl, as well as transfer film. It's Cricut branded stuff, but I got a sneaking suspicion the machine isn't going to care. Might even splurge on a new cutting mat as a gift to the owner of the Silhouette when I return it.

Oh, for laughs... this is the roll mark artwork
NAPA Know-How 15.jpg
 

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clm2112 said:
I guess the first attempt was a fail. Really, more of a misunderstanding of what I was trying to do. The owner of the machine gave me a roll of Oramask 813. I didn't realize what that stuff was designed for. When I described what I was doing, she assumed I would be needing a low-tack paint stencil film. (I did give her a sample of the vinyl DogFightInk was using, but I guess she never looked at it.)

So, the machine did its thing and cut the roll-mark design just fine. But during the course of trying to weed out the cuts, it sortta dawned on me that there was no way this would ever stick to a lower. It barely could stick to it's own backing sheet. Now I know what this material is for and it isn't suited for etching.

Tomorrow morning, before work, I can stop at JoAnn fabrics (convenient, it's a block away) and they have rolls of permanent vinyl, as well as transfer film. It's Cricut branded stuff, but I got a sneaking suspicion the machine isn't going to care. Might even splurge on a new cutting mat as a gift to the owner of the Silhouette when I return it.

Oh, for laughs... this is the roll mark artwork
View attachment 13310
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Haha.
I like your thinking.

In the same vein, here's another.

ace_the_place.png
 
Joanneā€™s should have sheets and rolls of vinyl. Oracle black sticks really well. If your Joann has the brand I recommend it.

The cut matt lasts forever. They are cleanable with soap, water if stickiness isnā€™t very stickyā€¦cleaning norm brings it back to near new sticky. Mine is all marked up cuz I set cutter to deep. I can still see the viper head stencil I made for Ramjetta. Thereā€™s also racers Celtic on the edge. Matt still works just fine
IMG_0344.jpeg


Products for these machines are interchangeable, plus there are several off brands that are great, hardware though is not.
These machines do cool projects not just vinyl, iron on for shirts, key chains, stickers, shirnkies etcā€¦
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Iā€™ll post the shirt I made for my Dad soon as I get the photo sent to me.

Edit- hereā€™s the shirt. Text changes color in the sun.
IMG_7864.jpeg
 
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Michele said:
Joanneā€™s should have sheets and rolls of vinyl. Oracle black sticks really well. If your Joann has the brand I recommend it.
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Oracal vinyl is indeed a good vinyl. We used this fairly often to wrap complex, multi-color gradient corporate graphics for large promotional wraps in automotive and special events that included large trucks and trailers. It performs quite well. I'm gonna assume it's the same supplier/brand that @Michele quoted above with the spelling of "Oracle".

You can look up the reputation of Oracal in the wrap industry. It is a very respected brand among professional wrap companies.
 
Nothing much to report yet. Just after my last post, mother nature decided to intervene with a tornado that wiped out the power to this area.

So, a day later, the power is back on, the downed trees are mostly cleaned up, and life resumes its normal shape. And the coffee is back to normal. It's been a while since I had to make a pot on the wood stove.

I did get to JoAnn fabrics. All the local store carries is Cricut branded supplies, so that's what came home. Since the cutter is a loaner, I figured I would explore a few other non-firearms related tasks to see what it can do. Did a nice job cutting a carb to manifold gasket for one of the Farmall Cubs using a sheet of FelPro rubberized gasket paper. (As if it wasn't obvious enough... I'm slowly rationalizing the decision to buy one of these cutters ;) )

Gasket making is a strong cost justification and it was so easy to do. I just scanned the image of the original gasket with a ruler on the glass for scale, cleaned the image up, and let Silhouette Studio trace it into a vector graphic. I see a library of common Holley, Rochester, IH, etc paper gaskets in my future. The cutter's work area is big enough to do a transmission valve body gasket.

Time for a little nap, then make another stab at cutting the stencil, this time using permanent vinyl sheet.

On a humorous note... the clerk at JoAnn was puzzled at my presence in her store. I guess I'm not the typical customer she was expecting. "Are you into crafting???" Ahem, not in the way you are thinking lady.
 
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Almost there... did ok on the logo and the larger print, had some issues with the smaller print. I cut it away so this much of the logo is usable. (I think I might just keep doing it this way, two stencils for the roll mark instead of one.)

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And ready to etch a little tonight ;)

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clm2112 said:
On a humorous note... the clerk at JoAnn was puzzled at my presence in her store. I guess I'm not the typical customer she was expecting. "Are you into crafting???"
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"I'm into guns, ma'am" "Oh, we keep our gun crafts in the back room. Follow me..." ;)
 

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