Hi there guys. I am in the search of a chrome/mirror acrylic material. Apparently comes in regular chrome color and also in black chrome (I think gold too and who knows what others)
I watched a video of somebody that “reverse” engraved the material and color infilled it from the back, this technique gives it a very smooth and sharp look in the front (not like the typical “engraving lines” we get when doing it on the front of the material).
The material is specific to be engraved from behind so you have to put it in the machine facing down and I guess it “removes” the chrome layer exposing a see-thru acrylic material that you can paint from behind and have a very nice gloss finish on the front. Any ideas where to get it ?
Generally you’re talking about mirror acrylic. It’s mirrored on one side.
Search the forum for “acrylic source“ and you’ll find a lot of leads. Beware that there’s still a fairly widespread acrylic shortage so you may have longer lead times.
Yeah it can be. You can engrave either side. It’s basically clear acrylic with one side coated in a mirror finish. If you engrave the mirror side you can do what you are describing. If you engrave the “front” side the engrave will float above the reflection a bit.
There’s also double sided mirror acrylic that is Coated the same way but it is mirror From both sides. It tends to be a bit more expensive.
For further reading look up “first surface” and “second surface” mirrors. The standard mirrored acrylic is a second surface. The double sided mirror acrylic is first surface in one side and second surface on the other.
Inventables also sells a lot of colorful mirrored acrylic. You’ve got options.
If you wanted to test it out cheaply- I’ve been buying mirror acrylic at Ikea. There’s a 1/16” thick mirror in the kids section that costs $5, DRÖMMARE. Cuts very nicely, haven’t tried engraving.
It’s hard to say what they used, but you can get really nice results with spray paint. You can see some little lines in my example and that’s just ridges in the engraved acrylic, but you can minimize them by “defocusing” the laser. (If you search the term you’ll find lots of good info about how to do it.)
I’ve always loved what you do.