Fellow Shadow Watchers,
Some time ago I suffered puzzling failures when
attempting to etch stainless steel using ferric chloride alone. Nothing
seemed to happen until the 'resist' was removed to reveal that the
exposed steel was untouched whereas the protected areas had
Hi Tony,From what you describe, it sounds to me like the acid has probably reacted about as much as it can with the metal. As the molecules of the acid react with the metal, new compounds are created (such as gases), and eventually there will be few acid molecules in a state to react with the
Knife-makers (makers of fine cutlery and hunting knives, etc., and of
knives for collectors) regularly use stainless steels (440, 420, etc.) for
their hardened blades.
Before the advent of laser etching, and in the shops of some small
makers still, acid etching was/is the technology with which
Tony,
if you happen to use stainless steel type 316 you have the toughest that
you can imagine. It is used on seagoing yachts and in kitchens because it
is resistant to nearly evrything. Even welding is difficult (but
possible). In that case I can imagine that your acid will have a short
live.
I heard that you can't laser cut stainless steel because the light reflects
back into the machine and it either doesn't cut or it doesn't cut well. Is
that true?
- Original Message -
From: Joe Montani [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006
John Carmichael wrote:
I heard that you can't laser cut stainless steel because the light
reflects back into the machine
and it either doesn't cut or it doesn't cut well. Is that true?
Steel and especially stainless are pretty good because they are dull
enough. Aluminum is more trouble
John et al,
I heard that you can't laser cut stainless steel because the light reflects
back into the machine and it either doesn't cut or it doesn't cut well. Is
that true?
Not true at all I'm afraid. Look at the polar bear gnomon on my
Longyearbyen sundial which was laser cut from S316
The sundial materials that you can't laser cut are bronze and brass. Stainless
is great except that normal shielding gas leaves a slightly burnt edge which
can be a problem for some high spec corrosion and welding applications.
Fritz
You said,
I heard that you can't laser cut stainless
Hi again,
There was no need for me to describe the Brock's Hill
Analemmatic as I'd forgotten that you can see it on my website at:
http://www.lindisun.demon.co.uk/brockshill.html
All those fancy shapes were laser cut from 6mm thick S316 stainless steel.
There are flash-butt welded
