Improving Laser Etched Acrylic Panels with Acrylic Paint

Step 3 Peal away the paper mask.

Then you simply peal away the protective paper. I usually wait until the paint has mostly dried, but with acrylic paint you don't have to wait super long. I sometimes use the head of the plastic toothpick on my Swiss army knife to unmask very detailed areas. It doesn't scratch the acrylic and you can just scrape around until all the little masking bits are gone. Or just use your fingernail.

The nice thing is that the because the final painted areas are recessed they are super durable and can't be rubbed/scratched off easily.

If you're laser etching a smooth surface that doesn't have protective paper, you can use paint, and a rubber squeegee to get the paint down into the etchings, but that's more of a pain and you have to do a bit more clean up. This system with the acrylic is ridiculously easy.

I haven't tried this with spray paint, or airbrush, but it seems like it aught to work just fine.

Comments

[jeff-o]

You mentioned earlier that metallic paint doesn't work so well with a brush - perhaps it would be better airbrushed.

[kurt.schaefer]

Good point. I bet that would work much better. I haven't had a chance to try it though. (I think I have all the parts for a very basic airbrush around, but we moved recently and so much of my life is in boxes that I haven't had a chance to track down the bits and give it a try.)