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Terry Wade
06-11-2017, 2:16 PM
I have a customer that has requested to have a Glock 19 slide engraved for a retiring Army Officer. The problem is that I only have a CO2 laser and I'm pretty sure that is a fiber laser operation. I told my customer that I would try to help put him in touch with someone who could engrave the slide for him. I got about 2.5 weeks to get this done, so if anyone can help us out please get in touch with me about time and cost.

Thanks....Terry Wade

Bert Kemp
06-11-2017, 4:19 PM
If the slide is coated like powder coat, Blued or some other coating its possible a co2 can do it. I had a Ruger that was cerkoted and engraved awesome on my co2

Gary Hair
06-11-2017, 9:35 PM
I'm sure there are people that are closer than me but I do this type of work on a daily basis. Let me know if I can help.

Chris DeGerolamo
06-12-2017, 3:40 PM
Used to be in Raleigh....moved out of to Murphy NC. You can send them my way if you want (CADD Graphics). That being said, you should be able to engrave the tenifer (slide coating) with your CO2.

Tim Bateson
06-13-2017, 11:34 AM
You didn't say where you are located. Did you get it engraved?

John Kleiber
06-13-2017, 5:19 PM
I'm way down in Texas, but for what its worth, I engraved a Glock 42 and 43 slide yesterday for retiring HPD Sergeant and Officer.
362049362050362051362052

Bill George
06-13-2017, 7:02 PM
John you do beautiful work.

Bert Kemp
06-13-2017, 7:37 PM
Nice John
I don't think the OP is coming back for answers .

John Kleiber
06-13-2017, 9:22 PM
Bill / Bert,

Thank you for the compliment. I probably...well, I know I spend too much time when I get engraving requests like this. I already had the patrol officers badge (with #) vector created, but not the Sergeant's badge. Spent 6 hours creating the Sergeant badge vector. Problem is, when you only have 9mm width, it takes a lot of experimenting and testing. The laser is super accurate, however I have to engrave for the human eye. Once I get the drawing just right, I have to deal with laser alignment for absolute center. The slogans on the side were a no brainer.

HPD Sergeant was given his today. Officer will get his on Friday. Hopefully I will get some retirement engraving business out of this.

Bert Kemp
06-13-2017, 11:19 PM
yea and it should be easier the next time I hope

Lee DeRaud
06-14-2017, 12:18 PM
Glocks engrave fine with a CO2 laser. The black coating is just phosphate and burns off to reveal the metal underneath. And you don't need to worry about rust, because the rust-proofing treatment Glock uses won't be affected. That said, if the gun is get a lot of use afterward, you could have problems with the phosphate wearing around/over the engraving. It's basically like engraving painted metal: the engraving is only as permanent as the paint.

(A fiber laser can certainly mark into the actual metal, but that's both a feature and a bug. The rust-proofing only penetrates the metal a few thousandths, and if you go deeper than that, the exposed metal could rust. Probably not be a problem for a "presentation" pistol, which is what this sounds like.)

Lee DeRaud
06-14-2017, 12:20 PM
I'm way down in Texas, but for what its worth, I engraved a Glock 42 and 43 slide yesterday for retiring HPD Sergeant and Officer.You had the slide recoated after engraving, right?

Neville Stewart
06-15-2017, 1:16 PM
You had the slide recoated after engraving, right?
Thats an interesting question, do you instruct that it needs recoating and or do you insist on having it recoated or what do you reasonably do?

Lee DeRaud
06-15-2017, 2:16 PM
Thats an interesting question, do you instruct that it needs recoating and or do you insist on having it recoated or what do you reasonably do?Unless I'm badly misreading those pictures, you did pretty deep engraving (with a fiber laser?), but the bottom of the letters is still black. That can't happen without some kind of recoating: the original black coating just isn't that thick.

And yes, if the engraving goes more than 10 thou or so into the metal, I'd recommend some kind of treatment, because that's deeper than the factory rust-proofing penetrates. Once again, the black stuff is strictly cosmetic: you can bead-blast it off and end up with a "brushed chrome" look that still won't rust.

Kev Williams
06-15-2017, 2:19 PM
I've been engraving guns since the '70's... some get paint, some get re-blued or coated by the owners, some I've gold filled, but a great many of them leave here bare metal, and I've never once had anyone tell me the engraving rusted. A gun that's used and cleaned regularly usually won't rust because of residual oil. The oils in your skin will inhibit rust. I just tell my customers to rub a little oil the engraving once in awhile. One fix if a customer likes the silver but is worried about rust is a quick coat of clear fingernail polish; wipe in, smear the excess off with your finger, let dry a couple minutes, wipe off the residual with a piece of old cotton sheet and some DNA. Another way is to mask everything but the engraving, take a can of clear spray enamel, make sure it sprays good, then hit the engraving with one quick back/forth mist from 1 foot or so away. You probably won't even notice it on the metal around the engraving, but if so a quick DNA wipe will remove it.

Neville Stewart
06-15-2017, 2:22 PM
[QUOTE=Kev Williams;2699189]I've been engraving guns since the '70's... some get paint, some get re
There needs to be a like button for Kevs responses. Even if I don't like them, I always learn from them. Thank you Kev, youre a gem.

John Lifer
06-16-2017, 4:00 PM
Hey Lee, if you look REALLY closely, and I'm pretty sure I'm seeing it, he deep engraved the gun and as a last step set up the parameters to Anneal. this then marked the bottom of the engraving and turned the bottom of the engraving Black. When I cut the initials initially, it was a light burn, one more pass as it turns black. And it's as black as a coating.without filling with paint or ink, etc.

Better? Hope that helps. The nice thing about a galvo fiber laser is that you can set many different hatch parameters and power parameters. The Chinese ezcad lets you set up to three different patterns with up to three different power settings for an item and run them back to back. Obviously you can then change again, but in one run you can get varied results.

.... I'll post a picture or two. If I'm wrong John, please let us know!
362231362232 And if you look at bottom left to the inverted letters, I did those the other day. A deep engrave then anneal.
Tim! I'm getting the hang of it! :D

But my work isn't as good as John's! Not yet!

Lee DeRaud
06-16-2017, 5:02 PM
...he ran the Fiber on Anneal as a last step and turned the bottom of the engraving Black...That sure looks like English, but I only understood about every third word. :confused::eek:

Terry Wade
06-16-2017, 8:42 PM
Guys I appreciate the responses and when a decision is made we will take the required action. I told him that I can engrave the the slide with my laser but it would only cut through the finish and not removing metal. I will show him my glock and let him decide if that is good enough for him, I think it is fine myself but he is the customer.

Thanks.....Terry Wade

John Lifer
06-16-2017, 9:21 PM
Updated my description. Hope it makes my poor English understandable:)

John Kleiber
06-16-2017, 9:51 PM
The bottom of the engravings are annealed and smoothed which can be seen as slightly shiny.

As for rust, well here in Houston, Texas our climate is classified as subtropical and our average humidity is 75. Bottom line, everything eventually rusts. If customers maintain their firearm with regular cleaning and CLP they will not have a problem. If firearms are to be stored, they usually place the firearm in a "sock" which is pre conditioned with oil to prevent rust.

John Kleiber
06-17-2017, 10:48 AM
Here is a S&W M&P barrel I marked last year with a CO2.
If you plan on marking qty, its worth the setup time, otherwise, I would never do just one again.
Alignment on a one up is a bear.

362249

Kev Williams
06-17-2017, 11:24 AM
Thiis floor plate was directly etched with my LS900-- The smoky deer was engraved directly from artwork and was a bit 'busy'.
The tips of the antlers were a bit out of focus, which I didn't realize until after I pulled it from the laser...
362254

This is pearl white Cermark. It's not all that white, but to be fair there was a bit of regular 6000 Cermark mixed in with it by accident.
Whether it would be whiter, I'm not sure, I haven't had the need to spend $165 on the stuff ;)
but it is definitely more permanent than just etching the metal coating, definitely an option...
362255

And I'm familiar with alignment nightmares :)
362253362250362252

The army logo was a pain and obviously didn't come out anywhere near perfect but I've been told (haven't seen it yet) the gun shop carved & dremel'd a few spots and Cerakoted it and it came out nice--
Which is good, because the gun shop gave me the wrong logo...

John Kleiber
06-17-2017, 11:22 PM
362250362252

The army logo was a pain and obviously didn't come out anywhere near perfect but I've been told (haven't seen it yet) the gun shop carved & dremel'd a few spots and Cerakoted it and it came out nice--
Which is good, because the gun shop gave me the wrong logo...

Kev, you are far braver than I.

-John

Bert Kemp
06-18-2017, 12:33 AM
This is a Ruger LCP-380 I picked up for cheap money. the barrel and slide had some rust and a little pitting but functioned fine. I took it to a shop and had it cerkoted. They wanted more then a new gun to refinish it LOL . I had to try engraving . Came out ok, just a tad off center but not to shabby.362288

Tim Bateson
06-18-2017, 9:58 AM
A Glock slide that I engraved and color filled - Note picture was prior to final polish. The 2nd is obviously not color filled.
362301362302

John Lifer
06-18-2017, 11:02 AM
Yep, Bert a good cerakoter, one that is trained and applies correctly makes good money. We think that cermark is expensive, those coatings are too! At least most have decent shelf lives. (Single part finishes at least)
Nice work also Tim!