Wooden Pen Engraving Fixture

[Peter Meacham]

Does anyone have a design for a holder (jig) for engraving wooden pen barrels?

[Cindy Rhoades]

If you look the website for either laser Bits or Laser Gofts I believe they have templates to make jigs for their pens and other items. You can download the file for gree.

[Keith Outten]

Peter,

I made a simple wooden jig for engraving pens that is two wooden blocks one glued on top of the other. On the top block I routed a 90 degree V to provide a channel for the pen blanks.
I calibrated the blocks by laser engraving lines on the top block that correspond to the lines in my Corel Draw drawing so I can simply lay the blank in the groove and engrave.

I have some pictures, just need to find them.
.

[Mike Null]

I did the same. Make the V groove shallow so the clip will rest in the right position. I glued a stop on mine so that I can position the pens exactly the same every time. (it is just a block across the top of the V block.)

[Peter Meacham]

Thanks for the inputs - before you all had a chance to respond to my request (quick turnaround job) I ended up using a section of "Thomas the Train" wooden track (it has some guide lines already engraved - simulated ties of a train track) and it worked good. But for future use, I will be looking at your suggestions.

Thanks again.

[Mike Troncalli]

Peter,

I LOVE IT !!!

Thanks for a good grin this morning.... I think your temporary solution epitomizes the wealth of knowledge, inventiveness, and general creativity of the people on this forum.

For what it's worth, I took two strips of window seal strip foam and created the same setup. The reason I used foam was because I do several different styles of pens (large, small ) and some that have angles. Using the foam lets me "push" the pen into it to keep it aligned verticaly and at the correct distance from the laser head.

"thomas the train track" - - he says as he walks away from the computer with a grin shaking his head....

[AL Ursich]

Peter,

You have a excellent tool to make a Jig for pens... Your Compucarve... Setup a board and use the Grid Function and set something like a simple 1 x 1 inch grid and be sure to select Center on board as it will be easier to re produce later. Draw Vector Lines and select the V90 bit and depth or draw a Carve Region rectangle. Use the Snap to Grid too..

In Corel setup up a file and a Grid. Do a Test with masking tape on the jig. Get the position by moving the board or the Corel Art.

I post on the CarveWright forum as Digitalwoodshop if you need help.

AL

[James A. Wolfe]

Peter,
I like to use acrylic to build holding jigs for pens and such. I lay them out and cut the sheet with the laser. Then I turn the lines of the jig off so that they are visible in the software but the laser ignores them. That way, I use the jig drawing as my alignment tool for adding text and graphics to the items and I'm guaranteed that everything will line up as long as I reference the jig in the same corner every time. I've found it helps to laser the name of the jig directly on it since a dog tag, business card or quilt label look an awful lot alike in silhouette.