My most complex project to date. A birthday card for a young man turning 18, who spends a lot of time thinking about Rome.
The two different faux marble acrylics are from Craft Closet.
I did several test runs with cheaper materials to decide on the size and placement of the various pieces. Note the error in the wood engrave—there was an overlap in the Illustrator image.
After the white marble was engraved I left the remaining tape in place to mask for the gold paint. It’s important to remember to tape the edges of the acrylic to avoid painting them!
The paint is Krylon Premium Metallic. The darkness and visible texture of the paint depends upon the speed, power and LPI of the engrave. For very complex engraves the speed makes a huge difference in the total time. I think 300 was 45 minutes faster than 200. The plaque next to the wood mockup was done at 300/40/270LPI but I decided after assembling the entire thing that the painted engrave needed to be darker so I redid the engrave at 200/50/270LPI. Here’s some tests showing how the engrave settings combine with the same paint:
The plaque is a sandwich of the two acrylic layers and then two layers of Proofgrade walnut plywood all held together by Chicago screws. One particular advantage of the Chicago screws in this case is how precisely you can align the smaller front acrylic cut relative to the other pieces. The wood back allows for an inexpensive stand to be attached with screws.
Finally, here’s the four layers side by side to show the geometry of the recess for a hook. The smaller opening is the final layer but the hook itself has space behind that because of the larger cut in the third layer.
