The number that jumped out at me first: this dial took 56 laser passes, not counting the cleaning runs in between. Every eighth pass, the maker runs a light cleanup at speed 1800 and 20 to 25 percent power to strip burned residue, and each pass swings 45 degrees, so eight of them cover a full rotation. That is a lot of disciplined repetition for one small disc.
The build is a custom watch dial done in reverse on a 30W fiber laser. Instead of marking the design, the background gets engraved away, leaving the numerals, markers and lettering standing proud on the original metal surface. The whole job, outer edge included, is programmed into Lightburn once before starting, and the pass count came from trial and error rather than a formula.
Once the etching is done, blue lacquer goes on with an airbrush, then the raised areas are sanded and polished back to bare metal while the paint stays down in the recesses. The result is a matte slate-blue face with silver-toned markings, carrying the inscription '42 YEARS IN THE SKIES' above '1985 - 2027'. The maker considers the sanding and polishing the step that matters most, and in my view that is easy to agree with, since that stage is what brings the relief back to life.
Two things stay open. All the exposed metal details share a single colour, a limit the maker points out, and the meaning of those dates is never explained beyond being intentional. The maker did offer to discuss sanding tools and methods in the comments, so that detail may still surface.
Project by Rexx Timepieces. Watch it on their YouTube channel: