MSRaynsford

As is their right, the blood and oil guys decided to go with acrylic for their counters . The acrylic is a bit trickier to glue together and all of the lettering has to be done with infill techniques . I decided to opt out of the assembly process for these and instead supply bags full of parts :)

I read on the internet about a few different techniques to infill acrylic with a different colour. I've done some previous painting where I engraved the protective cover off the acrylic. I found that engraving that protective sheet can be a bit hit and miss, sometimes it engraves fine but other times it just appears to melt so I prefer to peel it off now. I tried to apply some vinyl transfer tape which engraves better, this was effective but it seems silly peeling off one sheet and applying another. I settled on a compromise between the two. Since all the numbers and words around the outside are cut using Hershey text , instead of engraving they cut cleanly even through the protective sheet. The engrave in the middle of the item is done by first outlining the engrave with enough power to cut the sheet and then peeling the sheet off from the place that's going to be engraved. The idea is to do it in a single piece so they will be no weeding, the engrave can then be done ...

A lot of work has been done to use a wax infill on engraved items to provide a high colour contrast. For this cat image I achieved the same effect using acrylic paint instead. The process is relatively simple, the acrylic was engraved and cut with the protective layer still on the sheet. The engraving was done through the cover which left some texture in the dent. The whole thing was painted black afterwards and when the paint had dried I peeled off the protective layer, essentially making my own stencil for the item I had just cut. It's a rather effective technique I'm sure you'll agree. ( svg here )