Want to add value to your knives? Need intricate designs on your blades? Need to produce a logo or name on a knife. We custom laser engrave what you want on stainless steel, carbon steel, or any alloy; actually, the harder the metal, the better it engraves. Using a laser sensitive pigment, we produce a permanent black image/text on your blades. Custom work is our specialty! Knife scales/sheath engraving also available.www.custom-etched.com (http://www.custom-etched.com)
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How are your prices compaired to what a normal engraver charges? Ray

Hi Ray,
I don't know what "normal" engravers charge. Can you give me an idea?
I do know that I have done some custom knives for a maker in Maine that had been engraved by standard engraving methods and he was very dissatisifed. Now we do all of his engraving with our laser and laser sensitive pigment.
Will

P.S. I got permission today from the Maine maker to include his phone number. It's 207-864-9019; his name is George.

Why not post a picture of what you can do with the cost of that particular art work. Maybe you can post Georges knife and tell us what you charged for that work. You need to let people know what you have to offer and what it will take to get you to do it.

Good idea, Bob. The knife in the original post was one of George's. We charge $ 1.50/square inch to engrave. On George's, which was approximately 1" X 4", the cost was $ 6.00. Of course, if we have to clean-up or generate artwork there are additional charges for these activities. However, most artwork charges are ONE TIME only charges.

This forum has a bunch of people that do things themselves. If you want to offer a service here, you have to explain everything or people won't think twice. They will just go to the next message. You have to show that your service is something they will want, and prove that your service is worth investigating.

Your title of the post says etching and in the post says laser engraving or electro-etching? Do you do laser engraving? I would assume so since you do leather also.

The picture is not large enough to show the quality of your work.

Do you generate graphics or does the customer send them to you? If the customer sends them to you, what do you charge to scan or convert them to your software for the engraving machine? Do you charge extra for enlarging or shrinking? what do you charge if I send you a knife and say I want SWIRLY things on it?

How about telling us the entire process required to get a small picture, like a wolf head, lazer engraved on the bolster of a knife. What is the turn around time? How do you ensure there will not be any damage to the knife (Like you mixed my knife up with someone elses and I got miss piggy on my knife bolster by accident). How would you handle this problem?

Explain your etching process if you do that also and give examples and pricing of that as well.

Bob, I understand your questions and you make a number of very valid points. I made my description brief (too brief, I guess) because I didn't want to make a full fledged advertisment on the forum. My mistake.

Yes, we laser engrave either stock images or customer supplied images. We charge a one time digitizing fee of
$ 15.00 for scanning customer supplied images into our Corel Draw program. The enclosed images are from a series of George's knives where we scanned a restaurant owner's business card logo for engraving on the sheath then added George's "mark", and the C & P II (restaurant name) to the blade. Total cost was $ 49.00 plus shipping.

The pigment we use to create a permanent black image on stainless steel or other alloys is very unique. It was developed in Germany and is currently marketed in the US by a large pigment company. We apply the pigment slurry like paint. Under the intense heat of the laser, the pigment is actually annealed into the metal, thus the interchageabity of words like "etched" or "engraved". You can actually feel a slight raised texture on the completed mark. Once we're done, the pigment washes off with water, leaving the black mark behind. Although we've haven't had to do it, if there was a mistake, you could regrind the blade and remove the mark.

Images on the Internet tend to be low (72 dpi) resolution, otherwise they would take forever to load. We would be glad to email anyone interested higher resolution digital pictures.

Hope this answers some of your questions. If not, please feel free to call me at 505-354-0085 (MST).

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