[sdiy] Easy Magic! (Swirling Panels)

[Cynthia Webster]

Hi Gang!

I just thought it would be fun to share a
technique I just discovered.

In the process of making a little adapter box, I scribed lines onto
the soft thin aluminum panels of one of those Radio Shack plastic
and metal enclosures.

After drilling out the holes, I tried erasing the pencil lines
I'd scribed, only to find that micro abrasive bits in the eraser
made an awful indelible "smudge" on the panel!  Yikes!
(It looked awful, and I couldn't find a way to smooth it off)

I thought well, let's "make lemonade out of lemons" and chucked the
pencil in the drill press as if it was a drill bit, and then ran
the panel around under the drill press while spotting
the spinning eraser down momentarily onto the aluminum every
quarter-inch or so, (5 MM ?)

It made those really cool machined aluminum swirls that you see
on race car dashboards and fancy machine shop items! Wow!

A normal machine shop uses some special bit or tool for this,
and of course runs the panel precisely along the X Y table of
a milling machine for evenly spaced swirls...
But I just discovered that lots of ~randomly~ placed swirls
created by a spinning pencil eraser actually look really cool too!

(Who wouldda' thunk it?)  LOL!

Best Wishes!

Cynthia 
Slayer of Solder

http://www.cyndustries.com/