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Nestor Fernandez
05-11-2011, 2:01 PM
As mentioned in a prior post, I have had a Epilog Mini 24 (35W) for many years now, but have mainly used it to make the control panels for a custom portable practice amp that I was manufacturing. The control panel was made of 1/8" mirror backed smoked acrylic. The results of reverse etching were excellent and the customer base was very happy with the custom etching option.

Unfortunately, St. Patrick's day, last year, we had a home/office/manufacturing facility fire that cause everything to come to a standstill. My wife and I have recently been putting together a few ideas (and website) to start selling laser etched customizable goods.

I was hoping to get some opinions on the products we have come up with. I don't want to spread ourselves too thin, but I find myself looking at everything and thinking.... "I can etch that".

I had read a few posts here about night lights, so I decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, this was also my first time using Cell Cast Acrylic, and I was totally shocked. The level of detail, and overall results were fantastic. I've attached a photo so you guys can see what I am talking about (Nikita is my dog ;)).

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I've also included a photo of another cool idea that I found on the Epilog website which I decided to give a crack, which was customized soaps. Again, results were very surprising.

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Lastly, and not so uncommon of an idea, are black river rocks. I bought the stones at Michael's. The biggest problem I have with this is that not all the stones in the little pouch are shaped well for engraving. Focus becomes a problem, so I think I need a new source for rocks.

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Anyway, just wanted to say hello to everyone and get your thoughts on what I've done so far. I don't bruise easy, so don't hold back. ;)

Dee Gallo
05-11-2011, 4:06 PM
Nestor,

You don't mention where you are located, but how is the market for those kinds of custom products where you are... or are you planning to go with a website? All of your samples look great, by the way. Be aware that those are low cost items, so volume is your key - think about custom soaps for hotels and bed/breakfast places for example.

I hope you can make use of your misfortune to start a new chapter in your life!

cheers, dee

Nestor Fernandez
05-11-2011, 4:22 PM
Thanks Dee!

We are in Ossining, NY (Westchester County). I am originally a web developer, still work as a programmer during the day, so we are going with a website. We have also joined ASI for larger quantity orders and a wider variety of goods. The idea was to use the website to supplement our income with the one-offs and hopefully make some extra $$$. We had planned on pitching the soaps to hotels as well as spas, and maybe getting some quantity orders that way since we can load up the laser bed with quite a few of those little bars. Also, I think I got the idea for the night lights from one of your posts. Your pic looks familiar.... so.... thanks again!!!

Dee Gallo
05-11-2011, 4:42 PM
BTW Nestor, my first laser was bought from a lady who did soap engraving... it was a chore to clean it after all that soap, so be prepared!

Dan Hintz
05-11-2011, 5:43 PM
Be aware that promo products (ASI) are a hard sell... margins are extremely thin, and as far as the laser goes, you'll likely find someone else out there is doing for a lot less than you are willing to go. Sometimes, it makes sense to let someone else do the work and just take a few percent off of the top... you get to keep the customer happy and possibly a return visit, even if the profit is hardly worth opening the door for in the morning.

Martin Boekers
05-11-2011, 5:50 PM
it was a chore to clean it after all that soap, so be prepared!

How do you clean up soap? :D

Dan Hintz
05-11-2011, 5:52 PM
How do you clean up soap? :D
You use a generous handful of dirt, of course. Duh!

Martin Boekers
05-11-2011, 5:58 PM
If you want to do a rock type gift,try Agate they sell it cheaply in thin slices and I seen some nice things done with it.

Laser Sketch is just one supplier.

Are their any Casinos in your area? Link up with Chief Host and try to sell the idea of personalized gifts for "high rollers"
Casinos givaway a lot of stuff to those who give them lots of stuff (money)


Like Dan said quantity promotional pieces are hard to match for pricing. Consider joining ASI (about $600 a year) they do provide
support and amazing search engines, it may be something to consider. It opens up a whole new territory for buying blank merch
also. Many different items than our vendors carry.

Dee Gallo
05-11-2011, 6:42 PM
Along the rock theme, I've seen a lot of those in museum gift shops, with everything from Chinese characters to Ancient Runes to Egyptian hieroglyphs to nature related images like butterflies or leaves to fossil images. Maybe some business like a florist would them in floral displays. I've also seen them used at weddings as part of the table decorations.

Tammy Larrabee
05-11-2011, 8:05 PM
I have found that the biggest challenge is finding a niche (or two), making it yours, and catering to those customers, while trying to expand.

Nestor Fernandez
05-11-2011, 8:36 PM
Are their any Casinos in your area? Link up with Chief Host and try to sell the idea of personalized gifts for "high rollers"
Casinos givaway a lot of stuff to those who give them lots of stuff (money)


Like Dan said quantity promotional pieces are hard to match for pricing. Consider joining ASI (about $600 a year) they do provide
support and amazing search engines, it may be something to consider. It opens up a whole new territory for buying blank merch
also. Many different items than our vendors carry.


Unfortunately there are no casinos here in NY... illegal. but that would be a great idea.

We did, however, join ASI already and just received our ASI number this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to checking out what they have to offer.

Nestor Fernandez
05-11-2011, 8:37 PM
I'm kind of going in thinking that it is not as easy as they make it seem, but at $29.99/month, with no contract to sign, I figured it is worth a shot.

Martin Boekers
05-11-2011, 10:10 PM
I'm kind of going in thinking that it is not as easy as they make it seem, but at $29.99/month, with no contract to sign, I figured it is worth a shot.

ASI or laser payments? Must be ASI. Hey if it was as easy as they said everyone would be doing it.
ASI does sponsor small and larger trade show events which gives you a chance to meet and see distributors
products. Check and see when there is one in your area.

A big key is remember to check them out for blank products also.

Good luck and lets us know how your coming along!

Chuck Stone
05-12-2011, 8:25 AM
How do you clean up soap? :D

I always though it was self cleaning..

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 9:48 AM
ASI or laser payments? Must be ASI. Hey if it was as easy as they said everyone would be doing it.
ASI does sponsor small and larger trade show events which gives you a chance to meet and see distributors
products. Check and see when there is one in your area.

A big key is remember to check them out for blank products also.

Good luck and lets us know how your coming along!


Thanks Martin. Sorry for the confusion. ASI basic membership is $29.99/month. It doesn't give you access to their more impressive online search tools (something called ESP), but we have to walk before we can run.

I've heard about the shows and am definitely looking forward to attending the next one in my area. Unfortunately we just missed one in Atlantic City at the end of April.

Martin Boekers
05-12-2011, 10:27 AM
ASI isn't cheap that's for sure! You really have to sell the stuff to justify the upper packages.
I haven't joined because I don't sell enough. Some ASI suppliers will sell to you without an ASI number.
In the old days they wouldn't. There is a pretty good mark up though once you get selling

If they got it down to just a membership, no extras for $100 they would get alot of us engravers in
just for the versitility to by blanks.

There are a few similar organizations out there, Sage, Distributor Central (no cost) and a couple others.


Did they tell you what it cost for the 2nd year?

Don Young
05-12-2011, 11:13 AM
Marty,
I tried the agate thing but the laser wouldn't leave a mark. Thought there was a problem. Is there a trick to it ?

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 11:19 AM
Did they tell you what it cost for the 2nd year?

They now do not require a yearly subscription (not sure if they did in the past). We signed up for $29.99/month and you can cancel at any time. We received our ASI number yesterday and we are having a conference call with our rep on Friday to go over how to use all the resources available to us. Supposedly we will be receiving a large catalog with over 3000 suppliers which we can use to place our orders. The bonus, besides the fact that we can cancel at any time, which really sold me, is that they also are going to provide us with our first 50 leads.

We are hoping to get quantity orders filled by the ASI suppliers, and use our website to do the one-off custom orders, which nobody wants to seem to do, to supplement our income.

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 11:32 AM
BTW, I though I'd share another picture of some more product that we are selling on our site because I was so happy with the outcome of my product photo experiment.

All I did was get a 3 foot wide roll of white paper, drape it over a box, plant a tripod in front of the product, and experiment with the aperture and ASA settings until I got some good color and limited reflection. I know it still needs some work, but for a first round I don't think it came out all that bad.

What do you guys think??


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Dan Hintz
05-12-2011, 11:34 AM
I think you need a better zoom lens ;)

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 11:35 AM
I think you need a better zoom lens ;)

oops... I posted the thumbnail at first... just modified it with the larger image.

Martin Boekers
05-12-2011, 1:21 PM
BTW, I though I'd share another picture of some more product that we are selling on our site because I was so happy with the outcome of my product photo experiment.

All I did was get a 3 foot wide roll of white paper, drape it over a box, plant a tripod in front of the product, and experiment with the aperture and ASA settings until I got some good color and limited reflection. I know it still needs some work, but for a first round I don't think it came out all that bad.

What do you guys think??


194435

Not too bad, highly reflective products are always difficult.

I use an EZ Cube system not too expensive and EZ to work with.
The lights are cool (not hot) but they do take about 10min to get
up to color temp.

These light boxes are easy to make also. Lots of plans online.
One thing about lighting sometimes you want a reflective area in front
to bounce the white onto the subject. But sometimes it's better to use a dark
card to reflect a dark area on the subect. (subtractive lighting).

Check out the EZ cube sight for ideas.

Even cheap light from Harbor Freight will work, just remember to give them time to reach
a consistant color temp. It's best to use a light meter if you have one as if you use auto
exposure that will change depending upon the area of your product in relation to the white
sweep. That way you won't blow out any hightlights and spend less time correcting the
images. You could put an 18% grey card in the shop and spot read it from the camera.

I know more information than you needed!:D

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 1:42 PM
I know more information than you needed!:D

Maybe, but all good info. Thanks! I've looked at some DIY pages and have planned on building a box, but I needed to get these pictures up asap because a potential customer wanted to see the colors available.

When I have a bit more time I'll definitely be looking into the build.

Dan Hintz
05-12-2011, 2:46 PM
For about $40 eBay provided me with a 2' photo cube, multiple colored backgrounds, and two lights on tripods.

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 2:55 PM
Definitely going to look into it.

Zlatan Vuckovic
05-12-2011, 5:03 PM
Nestor where did you get the night light part?

Nestor Fernandez
05-12-2011, 5:55 PM
I got the blue sample at a local KMart, but when we noticed that it worked out so well, we search high and low and ended up ordering some more from Jasco Products.

Larry Bratton
05-12-2011, 7:13 PM
Marty,
I tried the agate thing but the laser wouldn't leave a mark. Thought there was a problem. Is there a trick to it ?
Don, At the risk of high jacking this thread, I will offer this. I have never done any of it, but I do know one thing, it is as hard as granite. I would suspect you would use a setting similar, I use 40p/100s @300dpi, with 40watt Epilog for granite. Just a guess though.

Richard Rumancik
05-13-2011, 8:32 PM
Be aware that promo products (ASI) are a hard sell... margins are extremely thin . . . .

What makes you say that Dan? I know a guy who is a promotional products dealer; he let me go to a show that was basically for dealers. The markup can be pretty good in my opinion, the trick is in getting the customers and the volume. They have catalogs with everything imaginable, and there are always companies wanting to do a promotion of some sort.

The promo products guys spend all their time marketing the product; then they order from a company that will do all the "dirty work" as in pad print, screen print, dye sub, laser engrave, etc. I get the occasional job from this dealer for onsie-twosies, but since he gets most of his stuff marked by his supplier, there is not much opportunity for me to get work in this manner. But I think the promotional products business itself can make some money if you know how to sell. Personally I don't like selling and like manufacturing . . . to each his own. (But I still need to sell or there's nothing to manufacture.) I doubt I could compete with a promotional products dealer, however, as they can get their stuff marked at very low cost. The companies that supply the dealers buy tons of ware at a time and have low costs to mark the items. This leaves quite a bit of room for some markup for the dealer.

I am not sure of the advantages of ASI if you just want to get blank ware. A lot of the catalogs if I recall correctly show prices including marking as they are assuming the promo products dealer can't do it. So if you buy unmarked ware, you have probably paid for the laser engraving (for example) but still have to do it yourself. There are probably general "importers" that can sell blank ware that could be marked/printed/sandcarved etc. as an alternative to ASI. At least that's my take on it.

Martin Boekers
05-13-2011, 8:58 PM
Typically the mark up is 30%-50%

For most even the artwork prep is marked up.
If you do the art yourself you can make more.

You get set up with samples (usually no charge)
Blanks, you don't pay the engraving or set up fees
and minimums are usually smaller. The thing with
buying blanks from them you have a larger selection
of items as there are more manufacturers making
and marketing promo items. Promotions are a bigger
market so it goes to figure that there would be more
products available.

The thing that is cool about there pricing is all the catalogs
are retail priced with a code at the end that explains your cost.
So you don't have to look it up in a seperate book trying to make
sure you customer doesn't realize what you pay.

Search ASI pricing codes and it will explain it.

You have to be a salesman and have a good network. There
is money to be made. Like anything else though it is work.

Many of the local shops sell ASI as they see it as an extension
of their product line.