Corian sandblasting before paint

[Alexis]

Hey to all of you,
I am relatively new to sign making,and kind of stressed because corian is very expensive.I have been asked to make 10'' by 15'' inch signs for elevators for one the biggest hotels in Greece.So it has be clear to perfect.
I engrave them and then cut them with my CNC machine.Then I paind the letters inside and then sand the whole piece so colors stays inside letters and the rest of the area is sanded corian.Do you know if sandblasting corian after cnc and before painting will give me better surface for painting the letters so as to last longer?Now I have just primered the letters and painted them with acrylics paint for cars.

 

[fixtureman]

Hey to all of you,
I am relatively new to sign making,and kind of stressed because corian is very expensive.I have been asked to make 10'' by 15'' inch signs for elevators for one the biggest hotels in Greece.So it has be clear to perfect.
I engrave them and then cut them with my CNC machine.Then I paind the letters inside and then sand the whole piece so colors stays inside letters and the rest of the area is sanded corian.Do you know if sandblasting corian after cnc and before painting will give me better surface for painting the letters so as to last longer?Now I have just primered the letters and painted them with acrylics paint for cars.

You can scrape the paint with a razor blade then just a little touch up with some fine sand paper

 

[letterman7]

You'll be fine. I usually do stuff like that with enamels, but I don't see why automotive acrylic enamel wouldn't work. You can save a step by masking the surface before you rout your copy - that way you can paint over your mask and not touch the surface with the paint.

 

[bowtievega]

We have used Corian or other solid surface materials many times. When we made that type of product before we had our CNC it was all sandblasted. When you sandblast you get a little more of a roughed up surface than engraving with the CNC. The acrylic urethane paint we used at the time would adhere directly to the sandblasted surface pretty darn well. Now that we use are CNC machine for engraving these types of signs, we only sandblast them if the copy is super small or if it has some intricate logos or something that just doesn't look good with using router bits. Since the Corian is basically acrylic, we use our adhesion promoter before the paint just like we do on acrylic letters and such. We also pre-mask the Corian with Gerber spray mask just like letterman7 suggested. As long as you keep a sharp bit in the machine you will be fine. You end up with a little bit of fuzz around some edges but can easily be cleaned off before painting. Good luck!

 

[Signsfyi]

One nice trick is to mask your sheets of Corian with a vinyl mask, then do your engraving and cutting. Spray your color, remove stencil and then use a razor blade to remove any flaws. I have found that most laquers, urethanes and enamels (being the least durable) stick just fine to the Corian. If you want to take that extra step, use plastic adhesion promoter (used on plastics of vehicles before paint), then go ahead and spray your color. Cheers!