Dear friends,

I am diorama lover and I also like to put my most fav pieces on a nice basswood or MDF base for display, but the dio is never complete with a spiffy looking metal (gold, metal, black "ebony"?) title plate.

Does anyone know a cheapskate way of making DIY nice metal title plate cheaply at home?

The chaps in the trophy shops here make them for SGD $10, but they can make mistakes like the wrong dates and nos....(e.g. 1944 becomes 1994...) and my missus had to make a 2 fruitless trips to the shop (trip 1- wrong date; trip 2- item not delivered from factory, saleslady has made a mistake)..that's something I MUST avoid at all cost.

Cheers
Musicwerks

Kiong,
If you want a really cheap DIY way to make title plates, get some ink jet decal paper, print up what you want in black and apply it to a small piece of aluminum or brass sheet. Good luck.
Regards,
Georg

If you want metal then you'll need a scribing tool. No clue how expensive or easy they are to use.
You could also look at using the home made Photo Etch chemicals to etch a name in a place (reverse PE making - etch out the inside lettering leaving the outside, not the outside leaving the inside.)