One of the most common jobs that engravers in the Recognition and Identification Industry run into is the need to personalize large quantity orders of the same product. Whether it’s cutting out name badges, engraving pens or sublimating mugs, we’re constantly creating multiple-plate layouts in order to speed up the production process. As I have suggested on many occasions, one of the best ways shop owners can increase their profit potential, other than adding new products and increasing their customer base, lies in reducing the amount of time it takes to get an order out the door. Reducing the time spent on each individual job leads to increased productivity which, in turn, leads to more money in your cash register at the end of the day. One of the issues we often run into, however, is that some of the products we sell can require a fair bit of manual labor or hands-on processing, especially when we’re dealing with unusual or odd-shaped items. The cost of labor is very expensive so whatever we can do to limit the amount of time it takes to set up a job, the less money it’s going to cost to produce that job and the more money there will be left over after the sale. That’s called profit! In order to reduce our costs, it requires that we constantly look for ways to speed up production. This article will look at how engravers can save time and money processing odd-shaped items by creating jigs for use with their lasers. These savings become even more significant when you’re doing quantity orders. The majority of laser engraving jobs involve marking flat objects like a piece of plastic or wood. These jobs typically involve placing the items, one at a time, in the top left-hand corner of the laser bed and then engraving each one. Note: I would suggest that you not always laser engrave in the top left-hand corner as it can wear the machine out faster, placing more wear in that area of the motion system. You can and should periodically engrave in the right-hand corner to help prevent uneven wear to the machine and ultimately increase the life of your system. Now, let’s get back to our discussion on jigs. While many of the materials and products we laser engrave are flat, obviously that’s not always the case. Wine glasses are one of the more common nonflat items that people want personalized. Most laser engraving systems have a cylindrical attachment, which is basically a large jig, specifically designed for these types of items. The nice thing about these attachments is that they are designed to work in conjunction with the laser, which means when they are in use the laser recognizes it and knows where it is on the table. This makes our job setup much easier. However, what do you do when you have odd-shaped items that will not fit in the cylindrical or rotary attachment or that you want to engrave on the laser table? I’ve found that after fielding questions about laser engraving unusual or odd-shaped products, pens and wine glasses are among the most popular items that I’m asked about. That’s why I chose pens as the topic for my next two CorelDRAW columns. This article, part one of this miniseries, will focus on creating a jig for engraving pens one at a time. Part 2 will show readers how to create a multiple-layout jig so you can engrave several pens at the same time. One of the most common misconceptions that newcomers to the laser engraving industry have is that they must use a cylindrical attachment to engrave a pen with a laser. This is not true. It is possible to laser engrave pens flat, although this tends to give some people fits. It can be done quite easily, however, by creating a simple jig to hold the pen in place. Let’s look at how we can make a jig for laser engraving a single pen using CorelDRAW. |
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Despite the fact that a pen has a curved surface, most brands typically have enough room for two lines of relatively small engraving. Before we get started, it would be wise to discuss some of the common difficulties we run into when working with pens. The first problem you often encounter is that the laser may have trouble locating the pen on the bed of the laser. The second problem is that the pen usually will not lie flat; it typically wants to roll or rotate until it is resting on the pen’s pocket clip. Another issue is that once the pen is in the correct position for lasering, it may start to move around if the laser is running too fast. There is one solution that will solve all of these problems at once, and that is to create a homemade jig or a holding device for the pen (Fig. 1). The best reason to create a jig is so we can place pens in the same position each time we need to engrave one. This eliminates the need to always try to figure out where the pen is on the engraving table since we know the coordinates of the jig and where the pen sits on this jig. Simply save this information in your “pen job” file within CorelDraw and you can reuse the layout each time one of these jobs comes up. Another advantage of using a jig for these jobs is that you can place the pen so the clip rests on the side of the jig, allowing you to position the pen so that the engraving is where you want it in relation to the pocket clip. Thirdly, the jig will hold the pen in place so it doesn’t move or roll around during the engraving process. There’s nothing worse than a product that shakes while it’s being lasered as this is usually a recipe for adding more scrap material to the garbage. You don’t have to be a skilled woodworker or have a lot of fancy equipment to make a holding jig for a pen. All we really need is a block of wood that’s about 1" or 1.5" thick and a table saw or a router. Note: If you have a rotary engraving machine then you can make your own jig simply by using a cutter suitable for wood or plastic and engraving a series of lines to create a tapered groove into the block. |
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Figure 2 shows a close-up view of the pen jig that I created from a block of wood. This was done by simply making a series of cuts into the wood until I had a cutout area large enough to hold the pen in place. In this case, I made the cutout area .25" since this will accommodate most of the pens that I use for personalization. The slot width and depth for a pen might vary slightly with the pens to be engraved, but generally you want the pen to rest in the mouth of the slot as shown in Figure 3. This makes it easy to position the pen so the pocket clip can be positioned either in the front, the back or positioned facing the bottom of the groove, allowing you to place the engraving where desired in relation to the clip. Once you have your block of wood, the first thing you need to do is open a new document in CorelDRAW and create a series of guidelines in your layout that indicates the size of the jig. I start out with an 8.5" x 11" page and then use the guidelines to mark off an area that represents the size of the block of wood, which is 4" x 3.625". Note: if you don’t want to use this setup you could also create a plate that is 4” wide by x 3.625 tall. Either way will work equally well. Guidelines will appear as dotted lines on your screen. They do not print out or engrave on your finished product, they simply serve as location points. To place a horizontal guideline, drag on the ruler on the top of the screen and drag down to a location on your page. Vertical guidelines are created the same way as horizontal ones, except that you drag from the vertical ruler on the left side of the screen. Once you have your block represented in the layout, the next step is to use another set of guidelines to indicate the groove that you want to cut out with the table saw (Fig. 4). Notice that the top line is at .875" and the bottom line is at 1.125", which will allow about .25" of engraving area depending on the thickness of the pen. Now you will need to place a separate guideline in the center of the other two lines (Fig. 5, red line). In this example, the center guideline is located exactly at the 1" mark, which will make it easier when you do the setup later on. Now that the horizontal guidelines are in place, we will need to create the vertical guidelines that will indicate the engraving area. Figure 6 shows our CorelDRAW layout with the vertical guidelines placed at the 2.5" mark and the 3.75" mark. Now that we’ve determined our engraving area and it has been included in the layout, we can do a test run on the laser. Note: I would suggest using a pencil or a wooden dowel rod about the same size as your pen when you do this test for the first time to prevent ruining a good pen and costing yourself money. One thing I’ve learned about laser engraving products like these is that even if you measure with precision, there is almost always some margin of error that will creep into your setup. |
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Before performing this test, make sure that the jig is placed directly against the ruler at the top left corner of the engraving table. This may seem like a simple thing, but you’d be surprised at how many jobs are ruined because this little detail is overlooked. Take it from experience and be sure to take one extra second to ensure that the jig is positioned correctly. With the jig in position, you can now send the job to the laser for your test.
This is an excellent way to reduce your chances of ruining products. I use this technique all the time. When creating a test image, make sure you don’t use a raster image or the laser will go beyond the image so that it can turn around, which means you will not get a true reading of where the image will be located on your pen.
If you want to use two lines of text in your layout then each line of text should fall between the guidelines in the engraving area (Fig. 11). Note: when it comes to engraving wooden pens, I tend to find that two lines of text is the maximum amount that will fit in a single layout. If your customer is looking for more than that, you may need to have them rethink their design or choose a different type of pen that may have more room for engraving.
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