NailStampPCB

Problem statement

I saw some really cool fingernail decorations online that looked like printed circuit boards. I love and fully endorse the idea of nerd fashion, but I also love DIY. I want to make space nails and use custom logos and designs, like the ISS or the red NASA worm logo.

I bought a silicon nail stamper and some plates from China. It appeared to me that these were probably CNC machined using an engraving bit. There were some really cool designs, and I learned how to stamp them onto nails, which was much more challenging than I thought it would be. I learned the following basic things:

Nail Stamping Lessons Learned

• Squeegee Technique I got much better results when I painted the entire design than if I painted a stripe and squeegeed across it like many online videos show.
• Squeegee Fast You have to squeegee quickly, but not actually press too hard. The stamper will push tiny extra bits into the cracks if there are small lines.
• Squeegee Lightly If you do press too hard, you will remove too much from larger open areas and get a poor stamp
• Stamp Quickly Speed is everything. Once you squeegee you have a ticking clock. Small lines dry VERY quickly, you have one, maybe two seconds to pick them up.
• Transfer with Haste Once on the stamper, you have about twice as long to transfer the stamp to the nail. It seems that the paint needs to still be tacky to transfer to the nail. If totally dry it will not stick neatly.
• Clear coat in steps The only way I could keep from smearing the stamp while applying clear coat was to paint a single stripe at a time and let fully dry before applying the next stripe. If you wait until you have done all nails first you can just paint one stripe down each nail then circle back around and to the next bit etc. If you in any way drag or interfere with wet clear coat you WILL smear the result. Patience is key!
• Clear Coat Twice A second (or third) , more traditional clear coat on each nail will make the surface look nice and smooth with no stripes.

DIY Idea

The thought occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, a printed circuit board's copper layer would be deep enough to hold enough nail polish for stamping. I performed an experiment using an actual printed circuit board from the junk box. The results were actually remarkably perfect.

DIY PCB Process Using Lasers

As documented on other pages, I have used the laser engraver at [www.heatsynclabs.org|HSL] to ablate black spray paint from the surface of a copper clad board and follow it up with ferric chloride etchant to remove the exposed copper. I decided that this would be a great place to start. I etched two versions of a small rocket ship and the HSL logo.

1. The first step is to prepare the PCB. The board must be cleaned with acetone and allowed to dry, then coated with about three coats of walmart brand flat black paint. This paint is extremely inexpensive at around $1 per can. If only a small area is to be etched, scotch tape can be used to cover large areas of the board. This makes clean up much easier.
2. Two engraving passes with the laser (settings were somewhere around 30 watts power, 0.05mm scan gap, 200mm/sec travel) are needed -- the first pass cleans the bulk of the paint and the second pass will remove the re-condensed soot that seems to spray out during the first pass.
3. The board is placed directly into the ferric chloride etchant bath and allowed to sit for 5 full minutes.
4. Remove the board and dunk into a dilute baking soda bath to neutralize residual etchant on the board.
5. Use rubbing alcohol to rub the exposed copper portions of the design with a Q-tip until they are noticeably brighter and the q-tip no longer turns black with soot. This step is required to remove ALL of the soot from the lasered areas and is not optional!
6. The board is rinsed with water and placed back into the etchant bath. Constant agitation should be applied to the bath and a back light can be used to check progress.
7. Once the light shines through the pattern and the edges of the design look clean, remove the board and dunk back into the backing soda bath.
8. Rinse and dry the board. Remove any scotch tape from the board, and use Acetone and paper towels to remove the spray paint mask.
9. A NEW NAIL STAMP IS BORN