I have been building my locost for some years now and have had my chassis powder coated. I have just applied for and received a chassis number from dvla and need to
Affix it to the chassis however as the Iva manual states a plate has to be fully seem welded I do not want to grind away any powder coat.

I had thought of getting it professionally engraved!!

Any thoughts would be great. Thanks.

I made up a stencil then used an automatic centre punch to mark the chassis similar to how engine blocks are numbered.

Dave B

I heard it can crush the chassis tube with a punch or letter punch.

Yes but I didn't use a punch and hammer... I used an automatic centre punch on the cross member at the back of the car. I printed a vinyl label stuck it to the tube then used the centre punch. This was actually proposed by Southampton IVA. The letters were big enough that the dots showed clearly the characters. I left the label on the tube to show the number I had stamped...

Dave B

[Edited on 5/1/14 by Dave Bailey]

Dont forget if you have it engraved it will take off the powdercoat anyway and leave the metal exposed so you would have to touch it up anyway.