At 06:11 PM 9/28/2007, Scott Deyo wrote:
How hard is it to have a nice textured paint finish (like DotCom, for instance ;) on an engraved panel? That's my biggest beef w/ FPE -- they just look so flat, and scratch easily.
The Suit & Tie Guy's panels, made using the same photo etching process (and same fonts!) that Moog modular panels used, look awesome. However, they have a matte finish that doesn't look like dotcom and MOTM panels. When I got my first STG panel -- not thinking that I'd get others -- I wanted it to look more dotcom-like. So...
What I did was to spray a few very light (misty) coats of clear coat. The result looked much more like the dotcom panels; not the same, because they don't have the same texture as the dotcom and MOTM panels, but the color matches more closely and there is a slight texture to it.
Consider experimenting with clear coat on a spare panel. Mask it off so that you are only spraying a small area, that way you can try different spraying techniques, different numbers of coats, etc.
Dotcom and MOTM panels are powder coated. Powder coat can be clear and it can be textured, but having it applied to an FPE panel would bump the cost of those pricey panels even higher.
--
john