29-07-2011, 06:54 PM
Hi,
Thank you for such glowing comments David from both me and Bron; you and Jennifer are the most generous and kind hearted people we know and it is a pleasure to have you as friends; we were pleased to be able to give a bit back as a small token of our sincere thanks for all the things you so kindly give us. We are looking forward to your next visit in the near future.
I'm keeping my head down Alan or I could well end with with a production line making brass nameplates.
Thanks for the compliment Joe and like you I not only noticed David had aligned the screw heads but knew he would do so as David gets even the smallest detail right.
I have a friend Joe; who recently tried to produce Radio brass emblems using the etching method; the results were mixed and the main problem I believe was the under cutting you mention also it was rather difficult to control the process to the fine degrees he would have liked although I was kindly sent pictures and he did get one emblem that to me was pretty near perfect so perhaps with a bit more refinement of the process the technique could be perfected. I also agree with you Joe that this Lorch nameplate is better than my AVO one; the AVO nameplate was my very first attempt and as such I was delighted it turned out so well.
As David rightly points out I did in fact cut the entire border for his Lorch plate as one complete piece whereas for my AVO I cut the border as four individual strips.
For the letters I use printed paper attached with double sided tape to the brass sheet but as an experiment with the Lorch border I used a marker pen in similar fashion to using engineers blue and then it was very easy to simply use a scriber to add the straight lines and a pair of drawing instrument dividers with very sharp points to add the four curved inner corners; the lines showed up well on the marker pen.
For the Lorch plate I used thicker gauge brass sheet this being 30 thou; the AVO plate was made out of 15 thou brass sheet. The thicker brass was easier to cut and handle also once the letters were cut out for the Lorch plate I removed the paper templates as I found leaving these in place and fettling using needle files the adhesive clogged up the file. I find it quite easy to cut very accurately using the fretsaw so little fettling is required but it does take a tremendous amount of concentration and co-ordination between both hands for good results.
I am so pleased with the success of the Lorch plate that today I've cut out a set of new AVO plate letters as I intend to replace the original AVO plate. I found out the hard way just how sharp a piercing saw blade is; I was sawing very near the edge when the blade broke free to be arrested by my finger; it's amazing how much blood appears after such a nick!!
Out of interest I timed the cutting of 21 letters this morning and it worked out at six and a half minutes each letter; this was just for cutting the letters out and doesn't include printing and adding the paper templates also the letters will require fettling; it does take a lot of time but I find once I get into the rhythm it is very therapeutic and time passes very quickly.
If I was to make more of these plates I would experiment with different adhesives for attaching letters and borders but so far the results are excellent and the Lorch plate could easily pass off as the real thing. The most enjoyable part of this project was trying something different.
Kind regards, Col.
Thank you for such glowing comments David from both me and Bron; you and Jennifer are the most generous and kind hearted people we know and it is a pleasure to have you as friends; we were pleased to be able to give a bit back as a small token of our sincere thanks for all the things you so kindly give us. We are looking forward to your next visit in the near future.
I'm keeping my head down Alan or I could well end with with a production line making brass nameplates.
Thanks for the compliment Joe and like you I not only noticed David had aligned the screw heads but knew he would do so as David gets even the smallest detail right.
I have a friend Joe; who recently tried to produce Radio brass emblems using the etching method; the results were mixed and the main problem I believe was the under cutting you mention also it was rather difficult to control the process to the fine degrees he would have liked although I was kindly sent pictures and he did get one emblem that to me was pretty near perfect so perhaps with a bit more refinement of the process the technique could be perfected. I also agree with you Joe that this Lorch nameplate is better than my AVO one; the AVO nameplate was my very first attempt and as such I was delighted it turned out so well.
As David rightly points out I did in fact cut the entire border for his Lorch plate as one complete piece whereas for my AVO I cut the border as four individual strips.
For the letters I use printed paper attached with double sided tape to the brass sheet but as an experiment with the Lorch border I used a marker pen in similar fashion to using engineers blue and then it was very easy to simply use a scriber to add the straight lines and a pair of drawing instrument dividers with very sharp points to add the four curved inner corners; the lines showed up well on the marker pen.
For the Lorch plate I used thicker gauge brass sheet this being 30 thou; the AVO plate was made out of 15 thou brass sheet. The thicker brass was easier to cut and handle also once the letters were cut out for the Lorch plate I removed the paper templates as I found leaving these in place and fettling using needle files the adhesive clogged up the file. I find it quite easy to cut very accurately using the fretsaw so little fettling is required but it does take a tremendous amount of concentration and co-ordination between both hands for good results.
I am so pleased with the success of the Lorch plate that today I've cut out a set of new AVO plate letters as I intend to replace the original AVO plate. I found out the hard way just how sharp a piercing saw blade is; I was sawing very near the edge when the blade broke free to be arrested by my finger; it's amazing how much blood appears after such a nick!!
Out of interest I timed the cutting of 21 letters this morning and it worked out at six and a half minutes each letter; this was just for cutting the letters out and doesn't include printing and adding the paper templates also the letters will require fettling; it does take a lot of time but I find once I get into the rhythm it is very therapeutic and time passes very quickly.
If I was to make more of these plates I would experiment with different adhesives for attaching letters and borders but so far the results are excellent and the Lorch plate could easily pass off as the real thing. The most enjoyable part of this project was trying something different.
Kind regards, Col.
