I purchased a monstrous saw mill blade that is about 52" in diameter. It barely fits on the 48" cutting deck. I want to engrave my company logo through the heavy rust, leaving the rusty patina to contrast the logo.
This seems like a job for the MC Etcher, but is it too much for a drag bit application? Are there any steel cutting V bits that could manage an actual groove in the steel? It’s just a logo, so precision depths are not a requirement here. I just need to see some shiny metal showing through the rust.
A saw blade is likely high speed steel. So that makes them pretty hard. So you may want to think about making your logo out of wood and then glue it on the saw blade. That might be easier than trying to engrave a saw blade and get enough contrast to be seen. With a wood logo you can color it and it will stand out and still get you look of the rusty saw blade. I think it would be hard to engrave on a saw blade but doable. If it does not go well you do have 2 sides so you can regroup and start over.
“Sometimes science is more art than science.” — Rick
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Love your Rick Sanchez quote by the way…
I spoke to a local metal shop and they were apprehensive about laser engraving due to the possibility of heavy rust flakes damaging their laser lens. It might be possible for our local CNC shop that does metal fab to mill the logo into the steel, but it will be $$$$. I guess I’ll ask, and if I don’t like the answer, I’ll regroup.
To lesson the pain $$$, you could provide the machine shop a well put together SVG or DXF file(s) for them to generate the tool paths for their machines. At least some of the time and effort would be done already.
52" is a pretty big piece, for a regular VMC would probably not be big enough.
Some body with a pretty big cnc router table would be better.
I assume you could cut it on an SP5, but you would be baby sitting with a coolant spray bottle handy. No clue on tooling, but it would probably be junk when you are done.
I would use a flat end mill to cover @gdon_2003 point of width of cut.
Do you now anyone with a water jet set up in your area. I would imagine a low pressure blast with a little abrasive mixed in would do the engraving.
I have a few connections through work that might point me in that direction. My goal is to preserve the heavy rust and reveal the logo in fresh steel, then clear coat the whole thing.
Encase that thing in a wood-framed plexiglass “box.” Etch the plex cover with whatever you want (e.g. on the back in reverse). Then no one will have to worry about cutting or breaking themselves for your special logo display.
“Sometimes art does not function well.” 
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Another beautiful thing about rust is that it’s so easy to make. Worst case, you could clean the thing, engrave it, then “reapply” the rust.
You’d need to mask the lettering with a clear coat or something before aging the rest of the material.
Not ideal but I did say worst case 
Personally, I’d think about water jet cutting the logo and backing it with another material for better contrast and visibility. (That would also let you backlight the lettering if you ever wanted to change it up in the future 
)
Should be pretty sweet regardless of your approach, sounds like a sick project 
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I agree with @HeuristicBishop regarding your available options:
Sand / polish the blade, and apply a mask by either:
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apply vinyl drag knife stencil of your logo and vinegar rust the blade that is exposed, then remove vinyl and clear coat.
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apply vinyl drag knife negative stencil of your logo, then clear coat logo that you want shiny. Remove stencil and vinegar rust blade, then rinse and clear coat everything.
Or, cut your logo from aluminum, brass, copper or stainless sheet and use standoffs to separate it from the blade background. You can use the thin LED rope lighting under the logo to give it a perimeter glow if you want.
Use longer standoffs and small track spot lights from above for an exaggerated shadow effect.
Depending on the logo, it may be amenable to an arrangement of stacked sections at different heights off the blade.
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