Retirement Gifts

The Goal: I had two coworkers who retiring after great careers. I wanted to make something simple for them to remember their years at HP and in one case at Compaq also.

Approach: My first idea was to do these in glass. I ran a variety of experiments to try to engrave glass on the CNC machine. Since my spindle has a max RPM of 5K, it really could not do a clean engraving (at least not with the settings I tried). I then gave stainless a try, but this is a lot of engraving in stainless. Finally I ended back at good old aluminum. The legs that these are mounted on are also aluminum and are held on by two small hex screws on each leg. To improve the contrast of the engraving, I engrave the part, and then cover the surface with machinist marking fluid. After the marking fluid dries I sand off the surface, leaving a bright surface which has a nice contrast to the marking fluid. I also applied a transparent sealant to both to help address fingerprints and other issues.