"Necessity is the mother of invention"
I didn't invent those words, but I'm a firm believer.
Case in point:
I was engraving numbers on walkie-talkies one day and made the mistake of putting a previously-engraved radio back into the engraving machine and engraved another number on top of the unit.
Yikes! What do you do now?
Basically, there are two solutions:
1. Replace the plastic housing and start over. Not very expensive, but time consuming. Especially if you know nothing about walike-talkies.
2. Re-engrave the number, above or below the mistake, and route-out the error, which leaves a rectangular recess. Not very pretty.
Wait! There's a third solution:
3. Use a rigid UV cure epoxy, the same as that used for epoxy doming.
What you do, is carefully fill the mis-engraved area with epoxy. You then take a business card and squeegee the the epoxy to "surface level." Wipe off any excess epoxy that surrounds engraving.
You can either put the item into a UV curing unit, or do what I do - Let Mother Nature take over. Let the epoxy cure for about 20 minutes in the sun.
The result is a re-engravable surface. Since the plastic housing of the walkie is a solid color (usually black) and the epoxy is clear, simply engrave the item with the correct wording/lettering and color-fill.
If the misengraved letter/number occupies the same space as the new engraving, say changing a "6" to a "9", the "botch" is virtually undetectable.
I hate to pull the wool over my customers eyes, but what they don't see won't hurt them :-)
Try it, you'll like it.
David "The Stunt Engraver" Lavaneri
DGL Engraving
Port Hueneme, CA |
