I am looking for something with “sharpie”-like behavior in white. It may not exist, just reaching out to see if anyone has a recommendation.
Specifically, to apply to engravings in clear acrylic and glass, that can then be easily removed from the un-marked surface with a rag with a little alcohol. I can get the desired effect with masking and acrylic, but that is not practical due to the shape and size of the items I am working with (and I have a lot of them.)
I had a paint pen but that was not easily removed from the un-marked surface, and it didn’t have the density I need. I ended up using acrylic for that previous project. It’s gone now and I don’t recall the brand.
There are a lot of candidates out there but I don’t want to buy a dozen products to see if they work, so just fishing for suggestions.
They are sharpie like pens but empty and refillable. you could put anything you want in there like a water based paint to make removal easy or if you find a product in a can that does the job for you better just fill the tubes up with that product. they usually come in sets with a few different head designs so would be flexible to your needs depending on how large of a surface or how fine of detail you need.
There is a guy at work that uses black paper all the time and uses pens for writing on it. A quick search for that yielded a boatload of stuff that might fit the bill.
I know there are lots of choices, I said that in my original post. I was asking for a recommendation from experience working with specific materials (glass and acrylic) with a strong opacity but simple clean-up.
The white sharpie I had is not opaque in engraved glass areas.
I know they even sell them still. but I have some Whiteout pens that do what you are looking for. They needed to be permanent so the ink they whited out would not show back up.
There’s a fundamental limitation in containing enough solids to provide opacity, while still having a medium that can flow through a paint nib/tip, which is essentially a filter. The finer the tip, the less opaque the medium will be.
Maybe a syringe with a fine needle tip and water based acrylic paint would yield better results? Or the bottles/tips used for dispensing acrylic weld solvent.
I’ve used toothpicks dipped in airbrush paint to fill tight engravings and it seemed that the acrylic engraving literally pulled the paint droplet off the toothpick and flowed it level.
I used to airbrush on vinyl vehicle graphics and used Nazdar GV inks. They worked wonderfully including the white, a respirator or even a fresh air supply hood was just a necessity though.
As I had to go to Walmart anyway (it’s been three weeks) I picked up a chalk marker, and it not only gives the look I was hoping for, it wipes off the unengraved areas with a dry rag.
