Week 22: Painting the Guide

Having reviewed and evaluated my Mk 2 prototype I decided to experiment with adding paint to the guide. I started with some initial test pieces of scrap wood and covered them with masking tape before laser cutting the guide into them. With the surface protected I could easily fill the etched portions with paint and once the masking tape was removed the result looked very clean.

Having found a good way to add the paint I did some tests using ash and walnut, the woods I would use to make my final product. I wanted to see what different shades of colour would look like in the guide while also searching for what looked good against the woods natural colour.

I found that an Umber brown or black worked very well with the ash, whereas cream or white stood out nicely against the walnut. However the results were not perfect: because of the open pores in the wood some of the paint bled out of the etched sections and made portions of the guide illegible. If I am to add paint to the guide in the final product I will need to fill and sand the wood before it goes to the laser cutter for a clean finish.