What type of DIY machine could do this?

[Rodne Gold]

Only DIY way is either electro or chemical etch... you will have a BIG problem getting rid of ferric chloride if you chemically etch

[Pieter Swart]

Just to get back to my original question:

This is what I was after:

I was thinking about getting a small desktop cnc kit and building it with a dremel from harbor freight, they're about $30 for a "good" set

metal-embossed-nameplate-aluminum-nameplate-metal-business.jpgcool-metal-business-card-veel-beter.jpg

The chemical etch did not really interest me,

[Scott Shepherd]

You aren't going to do that level of work with a dremel on a router, in my opinion.

[Matt McCoy]

If you're looking for a kit, the X-Carve or Shapeoko are two choices. They've moved past Dremel-like spindles, in favor of trim routers. As mentioned, you probably won't be able to get the same results pictured, due to the limitations of using mills (e.g., sharp corners). It will be pretty slow, especially milling SS, and considering the cost, you will have to be pretty selective on who you pass those cards out to.

[William Adams]

The rotary tools are at once surprisingly capable, and infuriating. Runout tends to be bad, power is low, and noise levels are high. The cut out tool, or the 1/4" trim router are slightly better, but runout is still a crapshoot, and it's annoying if the tool dies in the middle of a cut.

Best bang for the buck seems to be the Makita RT0701 clones, the MLCS Rocky 30 and Grizzly (forget the model number) --- I have the Makita, and use a 1/8" precision collet from Elaire Corporation to allow the use of small endmills. Lengthy discussion of options on the Shapeoko wiki. (and if there are any which were missed, I'd be glad to know of them)

[Kev Williams]

What I haven't seen brought up yet is tool radius. Those last 2 plates, I'm not sure if they were lasered, water jet, or chemical cut, but for 100% certain they were NOT cut with an endmill-- very narrow engraving tool possibly, but you won't find those at HF or HD...

I worked with a few of the sharp-corner pieces, and added the radius that would result from using a 1/32" endmill to machine the cutouts-- and good luck not breaking a 1/32" endmill even machining those holes in .020" thick aluminum... the smallest endmill I use is a 1/16"... any smaller and all I can successful accomplish with them is breaking them.

The white I superimposed over the photo- especially hard hit are corners with more than 90° angle, such as within W'S, M's, and the edges of the earth.
It's asking a lot to reproduce this much detail with readily-available cutter tools...
radi.jpg

[Matt McCoy]

I mentioned it two post ago, but appreciate you taking the time to expand on it more eloquently.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Those in the picture are laser cut and engraved with a Fibre, 800 to 1,000 watt if they are aluminium, 500 watt if they are stainless

[Scott Shepherd]

We've had business cards like that made a couple of times for customers. We had them laser cut. We had them laser cut and then cermarked them. The end cost to the last customer was $5 each. They ordered 100 of them. They sold high end products. If you brought them a card and turned it in to them, they'd give you 5% your treatment (dentist related stuff).

You can have the cards cut for about $1 each from most anyone with a metal cutting laser.