I would like to make a custom plate engraved or milled with a relief carving. Would a guy need to hire a cnc machinist to do this or what would be the best route for this? It's a fairly small plate, maybe 5"x10". It's going to replace this one. All of this will be polished and the relief will be painted to match body color. Just trying to figure out how to go about this.
You can do it yourself if you own a drill press, I've did several pieces this way, multiple shallow passes. Here's a video I made Sand it when your done
You can attack it a couple ways. You can have the design CNC machined, engraved or laser etched into metal. (Subtractive) You can have a new plate of plastic or metal 3D printed to the design you want. (Additive) These will be at different price points, depth and clarity. It's up to you to determine value and quality that meets your standards. You can also DIY as @swade41 showed. I will mention that drill presses are not designed for heavy side loads, so either use a big ol beast or consider the cheap one a throwaway after cutting to the side. I've seen some pretty damn interesting stuff done with routers, too. If you don't mind a shallow design, you could even mask and blast. Again, a very light design can be done using masking and acid. Or you can learn a new trade. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY2chD5xYoc
I worked in one shop, we had a few pantographs, I would make up bigger templates to do real small work. We had 2 old Gortons and some Swiss made one. This shop had no NC or CNC. If we had a big housing that needed an o-ring groove, that was how we did it. One guy carved out a horse head and a name plaque for a riding stable, it looked mint.
My boss owns a sign shop side business. I called him last night to see if his cnc router would do aluminum. He said no problem, so I will have him make a few. It costs the same to make 10 as it does one. Thanks for the input guys. I’m always intrigued at what hambers know!
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