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Did an engraving test tonight with some new engraving bits that I got from this eBay seller.  Decent results, though I am plagued by the X3’s slow spindle speeds.  I tried an experiment of painting the engraved text and then backspraying the entire piece with flat black, to see the text through the 1/4″ polycarbonate.  It looks pretty decent – kind of a classic look, but still better (and less hokey) than anything I’ve produced on my own so far.  The closest I’ve come is printing text on a laser printer, carefully cutting it out and using a Sharpie to color the edges, and sandwiching it between a front panel and a piece of clear plastic.

This is an experimental run for my friend Dan’s “Smoke-O-Tron” temperature controller that he designed and built for his meat smoker.  I am doing a little bit of enclosure work for him to make it look snazzy, and work on my own CNC mill enclosure-making chops at the same time.