Aluminium Machine Tags: Custom Color Anodized & Sized

Custom aluminium machine tags and ID plates have been a staple at CNCROi.com since the business was founded over 6 years ago.

What makes my company unique is that we THRIVE on custom, it’s so much fun bringing specs drawn-up by our customers on piece of paper or CAD electrons into physical items they use everyday in their business.

For this specific project, the spec was pretty straightforward, 0.02″ ~1 mm blue anodized aluminium to go along with their corporate colors with 4 riveting holes (one each corner) and then laser engraved to perfection for the ultimate in durability custom machine tag.

When it comes to aluminium, the laser etching is ALWAYS an off-white or light grey regardless of the color of the anodizing, as such, it generally works better to have a contrasting color instead of going with machine tags that are grey and then laser engraved grey.

I enjoy making custom stuff for around the shop using off-cuts from big production runs.

CNCROi.com can produce custom machine tags out of lamacoids (plastics), steel (stainless, high carbon etc.) and of course, aluminium – each of these material options have their plus and minuses that we’ll review right now.

Like the Ford Model-T, you can have any color of etching on aluminium as long as it’s a light grey, the color of the anodizing though can be any color you want, you want hot pink? Blue? Moss green… whatever you want, CNCROi.com can custom anodize the plate for you.

CNCROi.com also makes custom production runs of cable tags of all sizes and shapes, in addition to custom production to spec.

When it comes to lamacoids, it’s the same game, except instead of being anodized and stuck with only one etching color, you can have two-colors – meaning the “front” can be any color you want and the engraving a different color.

For stainless steel or other variants, the etching is generally a dark brow to black and the steel is the color you are “stuck” with, can be polished or grained but color isn’t an option.

When it comes to aluminium machine tags, they are light weight (at 0.02″ thick) compared to lamacoids that are 2-3x thicker and have incredible durability, not on part with steel, but in most applications, still wicked overkill.

Stainless steel is an incredibly durable option when it comes to custom machine tags, they can be easily welded right to your work piece as well!

For aluminium machine tags, like with other material options, your plate size and hole options are endless, meaning if you want it in the shape of a donkey with holes every quarter inch about 1/8″ in diameter or whatever, no problem for CNCROi.com.

Regardless of your plate sizing and design options, what is actually etched onto the aluminium machine tags is also infinite as CNCROi.com makes them one at a time, this is great for serialization and alphanumeric identifications so no, they don’t need to all be the same nor do they need to have the same etching design on them.

When it comes to custom industrial tags, lots of options are available.

For aluminium machine tags specifically, you have several adhesion methods, one is just double sided tape, they are light weight like lamacoids, another is riveting or screw holes, same options as steel variants and the third is welding, again, only possible with aluminium and steel options, not lamacoids.

With the anodizing process, there is some variation in color tone depending on where they were in the vat and how much dye and electricity was present in the location, as such, we DO NOT do color matching, light blue, dark blue for example is fine, Pantone color XYZ is a non-starter.

The bright lights you see in this engraving pass are actually instantly vaporized and bleached anodizing by our CO2 laser, the resolution we can achieve is up to a thousand DPI, so even very fine details come out crystal clear.

Farmers and orchards love our plates because they will outlast the wooden post they are affixed to regardless of environment.

A common question I get is if it’s possible to etch in a different color, the straight answer is no because although yes, it’s possible to etch black on anodized aluminium, it’s such a slow and methodical process that it isn’t anywhere near cost effective at the moment but CNCROi.com is looking in to that along with other acid etching options as we do more and more custom anodized aluminium jobs.

Just to summarize, with CNCROi.com, you have endless color, thickness, material and design options when it comes to custom machine tags, but what about volume?

Sometimes customers contact us in a panic having a machine just about to head out of the door and purchasing forgot to order a tag for the machine, so they need it FAST!

If you are wondering how a lamacoid compares to their anodized aluminium cousins, here’s a great video showing production through properties of each.

CNCROi.com can absolutely help in those circumstances, when ever we do a production run of say, aluminium machine tags that are X by Y size, I always produce an extra 10-25% for such situations, it comes in very handy when the whole supply chain doesn’t need to be turned and sorted for one urgent next-day tag.

As such, we’ve done production runs as small as one unit to the thousands, I try to keep a healthy variety of options in inventory but if you have a very specific requirement and need it fast, generally I suggest either stainless steel or lamacoid, as the anodizing process is not a 24 hour thing unless we have the sheet goods in stock.

The fine powder you see on these aluminium machine tags is just vaporized anodizing and aluminium dust, it comes right off so no sanding like what would be required for wood is required.

For some reason, the favorite color of our clients when it comes to custom anodized aluminium machine tags and ID plates is blue.

Looking at the production cycle at another angle, it’s hard to see but even the fine details in the wooden barrels come out crystal clear, everything is nice and sharp because the customer provided CNCROi.com with the proper image format, no jagged anything anywhere on these aluminium machine tags.

The holes are generally drilled but sometimes we laser cut them out as well, again, there are many options when it comes to making cost-effective custom aluminium machine tags, stamping to lasers, routers to hand sheers.

These tags will last an incredibly long time, they can easily last a lifetime in a desert Sun, bashed by rocks or anything else as unlike screen or UV printing, the etching will never peel, crack or fade over time.

Need some custom machine tags? Contact CNCROi.com right now!