Front plate looks like patchy rust-through of brass plating
over steel and fingernail worn-off lettering. Actually a copper
or at least non-ferrous plate printed and probably lacquered over
to look like brass. Other than stripping back or a new plate ,
re-printing and lacquering is there any other remedy ?
There's a reasonably DIY panel printing method available from RS
Components. You start out with a specially coated anodised aluminium
panel. You do your artwork and print in black to a transparency. Then do a
contact print to the aluminium by exposing it to UV light. Next you wash
in water which removes the non exposed coating. You then dye those parts
with either red, green, blue, yellow, or black that they supply. Not sure
if you can mix them to get other colours, though.
You then use a solvent to remove the undercoating and boil in water for
half an hour or so. The end result is anodised aluminium with the
lettering, etc, in the colours of your choice.
You get a choice of aluminium gauge - a thin one which you'd stick onto a
base panel, or a thick one for stand alone use.
Start up costs are highish - but certainly less than a one off screen
printed panel, or pro engraving, and the results are durable and
excellent. There's enough aluminium in the start up kit to do perhaps 8
such panels. And then you can buy the individual panels or chemicals
separately as needed.
