Dice engraving - How to speed up the process

[Philippe Lecomte]

Hi,

I've just received an order about engraving small blank six sided dice (12mm) in large quantities (maybe 10000).

I know how to do it for a handful dices but i never tackled a huge order like that.

My normal steps would be :
- Place all the dice on face 1 in the laser
- Mask
- Engrave
- Paint
- Remove the mask and clean
- Turn all the dice on face 2 and realign
- Repeat

Obviously, the main problem is turning 10000 dices by hand, one by one !!!!

Even if i proceed by batches, the problem is the same.

I'm seeking for any solution from manual work tips to a full mechanical solution to build (!!!) !

Did someone had to solve this type of challenge before ?

Regards,

Philippe

[Matt Turner (physics)]

Previous discussion: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?213699-Engraving-custom-dice

[Philippe Lecomte]

Hi Matt,

Thanks. This previous thread goes a bit in every directions (dice providers...), but there are some good tips.

This manual dice turning operation still seems unmanageable for huge quantities, even with the jigs help. I would have to recruit 2 or 3 people to turn dice all the day ! ^^

Regards,

Philippe

[Bert Kemp]

I agree that it just to time consuming. I couldn't see were it would pay enough to make it worth your while.

[Joe Pelonio]

I agree, it seems like someone could buy dice already made (in China?) for far less than what we would have to charge for all that labor time.I would also consider it a terrible waste of time even if you get a decent price, and have a minimum wage employee to do the turning.

[Bert Kemp]

Just for grins a giggles I Googled buy 10000 dice , $539 wholesale. Hey buy then and then sell them to your client for a 1000$:D

[Philippe Lecomte]

@bert : My client doesn't want normal "dot" dice. Each face must be engraved with different symbol. I'm sure that even the chinese price won't be as low as the one you found ! ;)

Related to our discussion, it seems that this firm manage to do something with their orders : http://q-workshop.com/customdice
Maybe i'll try to contact them to learn their secret ! ^^ (i'm optimistic !)

[Dave Sheldrake]

Bonjour Philippe :)

Q-workshop use Galvo lasers, even turning a single set of dice by hand with the speed of a Galvo makes it profitable.

I've done quite a few custom dice but it sure gets tedious after the first 1,000 or so ;)

cheers

dave

[Philippe Lecomte]

I didn't know what Galvo laser were before your post, Dave, it seems to be a really great machine ! :)

I'll try the manual dice turning on this order and refuse the next ones if it's too tedious.

Does someone have some insight on managing the jigs placement between the batches ? I know that they are some very small offsets in X & Y in start position when I burn the same projects multiple times. (immediate mode or not)
Theses dice are very small and i don't want to take the risk of missing the last face after all theses manual actions ! :)

[Jerome Stanek]

I would use a pin register system. I would mount a base in the laser and cut 2 holes in it then I would use the same 2 holes in each of my blank jigs pin it and cut the die openings.

[Mike Null]

Does anybody think that a laser is not the way to do this job?:rolleyes:

[Matt McCoy]

Does anybody think that a laser is not the way to do this job?:rolleyes:

What do you suggest?

[Bert Kemp]

I think the first couple of posts we decided this was not the best way to do this job. I mean seriously, even if he had a super large bed size and could place a 1000 at a time in it, just the time involved to place all of them in then turn them 6 times and do that 10 times, and don't forget you have to buy material to build the jigs.
How much could you possibly charge for a job like that? Personally I don't know if a dollar per die would be enough.

[Philippe Lecomte]

I aligned myself on Chessex (a dice manufacturer) for this order. The price is "by custom face number".



Pricing:
10-25 dice: $1.00 per side
26-99 dice: $0.75 per side
100-199 dice: $0.60 per side
200-499 dice: $0.50 per side
500-999 dice: $0.42 per side
1000+: please ask for quotes

My bed size is 90x120 so i could manage batches of 5000 dices approximatively.

[Scott Shepherd]

I wouldn't discount it's feasibility too quickly. A couple times a year, we do some small items in high quantity. I think the most we ever did was 22,000 of them at one time. My fixture holds about 325 of them at a time, but I could easily make a bigger fixture to hold many more. I have 4 fixtures, it takes 3 minutes to run 325 of them, 12 minutes to unload and load a new fixture, and we use 3 people to keep it running. We've calculated it every time we've run it and we're billing close to $400 per hour for the work.

I'd take all these dice I could get for .42 cents per side. I'd even go into the dice making business for that price :) I suspect you'd do quite well. I'd suspect you'd have about 8 seconds a side on the engraving, when done in mass.

[Philippe Lecomte]

Thanks all for your return.

So we all agree that the selling price is the only obstacle that i can encounter if i build up the courage to do the manual turning myself.

@Bert : Subject is closed for me. I've enough informations to go on with my order. I'll let you know if i manage to build something to gain speed in the process and the average time by dice as soon as the project will be done.

Regards,

Philippe

[Frank barry]

Hi just my taught I would make 2 jigs so i would load one put in machine and run while it is running I would load the other jig with a bit of taught you could make a jig that you could turn over so that would cut your loading time in half have fun cheers Frank

[Martin Boekers]

Hmmm I didn't realize dice were so popular.... A quick search of Kickstarter show a few funding in progress and this one that just ended this summer...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/customgamelab/custom-game-dice-you-design

[Mike Null]

Maybe I've had my head in the sand. I can't imagine anybody paying $.42 per side.

[Scott Shepherd]

Maybe I've had my head in the sand. I can't imagine anybody paying $.42 per side.

That's what made me say I'd do them all day long :) $2.52 per die? That's like printing money there.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Gaming accessory market is insane.....On a recent visit to a client they were having a games night, 10 tables set out with various games on them.

$350,000 worth of stuff on 10 dinner sized tables!

As my client said to me "This is our cocaine"

cheers

Dave