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Precision screen printing

How small is the text and/or how thin is the narrowest line? Print on a flat face or on a circumference? And by "precision" do you mean dimensional accuracy of the printing, registration of the printing with part features, or registration of multiple color passes with each other? Or something else?

There are different choices, depending on the answers. Simplest solution for one color on a flat surface would be silk screening or (at a larger scale) stenciling. Simplest solution for non-flat surface would be padding.
 
There are several sizes from 1 7/8 to 2", they are flat gauge faces. The bulk of the text is around .15 tall and the thinnest lines are around .020 on the smallest text about .06 tall
IMG_3786.jpg
 
Somewhere I have an article from "machinery" magazine showing a worker at Monarch screen printing the compound rest angular divisions.
 
Milland said:
Laser that sucker! Lasers work for everything!
Click to expand...

Though that would be easier and cheaper the guy that buys it wants it to look and be as close as possible to what came on his 1930's motorcycle, so, it really needs to be screen printed. These are restoration parts for motorcycles worth 50k - 100k
 
I feel their pain, took me the better part of a decade to find a set of gauges for a car I restored, and they were only mostly right. HAd to swap a bezel on one.

I would price out 8-1/2x 11 sheets of them


From another project I learned that new silkscreen has a much sharper line than vintage stuff, so the lettering might look ever so slightly smaller than the original because they are not so fuzzy


No one would notice unless they changed just one gauge
 
kustomizer said:
There are several sizes from 1 7/8 to 2", they are flat gauge faces. The bulk of the text is around .15 tall and the thinnest lines are around .020 on the smallest text about .06 tall
View attachment 339773
Click to expand...

Those are usually done with offset printing, black ink on a matte white aluminum sheet.

Decades ago I worked for an electrical instrument manufacturer and that is how it was done. Most of our gauge faces were black markings on white but we also had some customers who wanted the white markings on black, which was done by making a negative of the artwork.

We had some customers who wanted colored bars as well and this was done by secondary printing operations. We made whatever the customer wanted, with a lot of 4-20mA process meters with some really weird scales such as cubic yards per second.
 
I hate to suggest this, because all of these fucked up "Reality" shows make me want to vomit. But what about that Ricks Restorations guy? Sounds like it's right up his alley.
 
Scottl said:
Those are usually done with offset printing, black ink on a matte white aluminum sheet.

Decades ago I worked for an electrical instrument manufacturer and that is how it was done. Most of our gauge faces were black markings on white but we also had some customers who wanted the white markings on black, which was done by making a negative of the artwork.

We had some customers who wanted colored bars as well and this was done by secondary printing operations. We made whatever the customer wanted, with a lot of 4-20mA process meters with some really weird scales such as cubic yards per second.
Click to expand...

Makes sense when they were building a ton, I have a feeling that now they would silkscreen

But it does bring to mind the do it in house idea.

Making it negative as you mention would make it a lot easier I would think to make your own 'stamp' as it were. Let a little end mill go to work on a chunk of aluminum

Roller some black paint and try it on a white painted chunk of aluminum...
 
Pad printing is the way to go for high quality printing on small parts but you'll need to purchase a machine to do it or have it done outside. Google pad printing.

"Pad printing (also called tampography) is a printing process that can transfer a 2-D image onto a 3-D object. This is accomplished using an indirect offset (gravure) printing process that involves an image being transferred from the cliché via a silicone pad onto a substrate."

Cheers
 
gustafson said:
Makes sense when they were building a ton, I have a feeling that now they would silkscreen

But it does bring to mind the do it in house idea.

Making it negative as you mention would make it a lot easier I would think to make your own 'stamp' as it were. Let a little end mill go to work on a chunk of aluminum

Roller some black paint and try it on a white painted chunk of aluminum...
Click to expand...

No, the offset printing method used was practical for short runs. A great deal of the orders were custom or semi-custom and the way the factory did it was to have special fixtures to mount the stamped dial blanks that were easy to change. The high volume stuff was done in another section of the plant using different presses.

This was in the days before CAD was widely available and the dial calibrations for non-linear scales such as thermocouples were done using a Fortran program using dial-up access to a mainframe that generated a text printout. The printout was then forwarded to the layout department where a couple of women hand-inked the master patterns using standard drafting equipment. The master patterns were then photo reduced to generate the actual size artwork to burn the plates.

The same Fortran program also calculated windings and springs for jeweled instruments or band size and tension for taut band instruments. Many of the gauges were high end and used for everything from industrial processes to military applications and even nuclear power plants.

PS: If the OP is looking for a one-off the cheapest method would be to create the art on a PC and use either direct toner transfer or toner or inkjet decals. The aluminum we used for dial scales was the same as the white aluminum trim stock used by siding contractors.
 
Cost is not of real concern, getting them to be as correct to original as possible is the main goal. These will end up on a 1930's toy worth 50-100k. I found a stash of NOS gauges with everything correct except the face markings and fonts. It will be worth my time to learn to do them correct as there are several styles that I can do. I found out yesterday I have a friend who does this, he says he can do them for $53. each for 12 pcs and $2.50 if I get close to 100 pcs. He will do 1 and send it to me so I can check and adjust the location of the printing if required. I think I will try this and see how it goes.
Thanks for your input, it really did help me decide.
 
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