Keith, How's the marble reselling going?

[Shaddy Dedmore]

The 2 pieces I've used so far turned out good. I thought the edges would be smoother, but they still looked good enough. So I'm pretty happy with them.

http://www.shaddysengraving.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/MarblePlaque.jpg


http://www.shaddysengraving.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/KellieNBill4x6.jpg



I was just wondering if that ever took off for you, and are you still selling. I like them better than Laser Sketch.

The first one listed is an 8.5 x 11, the pic quality that I uploaded isn't all that great, so it looks better in person. For that one, I didn't use photograv... I just sharpened it up with the UnsharpMask until it looked a bit too sharp (seems to transfer better to marble that way), then I made it a negative, then I resampled it to 600 DPI and just sent it to the laser... no dithering at all. I sent it greyscale. I let my Epilog 24tt driver worry about it. Game out good. THe other is a 5x7 and I used photograv, also set for 600 dpi. Still came out good. I think if I went with Granite, I'd use Photograv, and if I used Lasersketch (seems like a softer marble), but for your stuff, and the stuff I got from my local tile place, I'll just be using the driver.

Just thought I'd post my results, maybe drum up a little business for you if you're still selling.

Summary, for those people skimming.... I like these better than Lasersketch for quality of etched photo. And I'd pay a bit extra for an even cleaner edge, though it's do-able as it is.

Shaddy

[Keith Outten]

Shaddy,

Thanks for the good review :)

All is well concerning black marble sales. The workload has been so busy my neighbor has joined us and has taken over most of the black marble work recently. The timing worked out well as I pulled a muscle in my shoulder and have been out of commission for about ten days now. I haven't even been able to cut the grass until yesterday.

The edges of our tiles are sanded to 400 grit, we can improve on the finish but we felt that this was smooth enough and keeps the cost down. I am considering another finishing option and thinking abour purchasiing another piece of equipment for tile prep, more testing is needed. No doubt we will continue to improve our tile products, we just started offering dog-eared cuts and we have a few other things in the works as well (frames. stands, hangers, etc).

I am also working on creating some nice Corian plaques for engraving. As soon as I have all the samples completed I will have pictures on my new web site which is also being completely overhauled. I hope to have a whole group of new engraving products available before the Christmas season as well. Most of my time in the coming weeks will be spent on developing new engraving products and some marketing work. I should have a few new things to post here at SMC by next weekend, some marketing stuff I have been working on lately...hopefully my shoulder will heal up and I can finish at least a couple of items.

[Pete Simmons]

I only use Keith's Black Marble and my customers LOVE it! The edges, as is, are fine. Most people are so taken with the quality of the photo I think you could cut it with a chain saw and they would still like it.

Keith - Keep a good stock of those flat rate mail boxes on hand. I will be ordering more. I have also learned quite a bit about Keith's home town news - Reading the newspaper that he wraps the marble in!!

[Keith Outten]

Thanks Pete,

It is nice to hear that you folks like our tile and it lets us know that we should continue to work on expanding and improving our tile sales. Now if we could just pick up another hundred customers we could afford a Water Jet and be able to custom cut shapes and improve the edge quaity at the same time :)

[Alan Young]

Thanks Pete,
another hundred customers we could afford a Water Jet and be able to custom

Sounds like a new forum to me:D

[Keith Outten]

Alan,

A Water Jet Forum sounds like fun but might be a stretch for us right now. We may not be too far from a CNC routing Forum though, there is much to learn about CNC design and it would be nice to have the combined talents of our members helping us learn to use our new router.

Aaron did his first 3D project tonight, he cut a Texas Star that one of the guys on the ShopBot Forum posted for us newbies to try. Aaron cut the Star from African mahogany and it is quite impressive for a first run. I think Aaron has the 3D routing bug so we may be off to the software store again very soon :)