pen engraving

[Sam Starr]

can anyone tell me if an attchment is needed to engrave round objects such as pens. I have heard this but am not sure if it is true. Thanks for your help.:confused:

[Shane Turner]

If you're going to engrave all the way round the pen, then yes, you'll need a rotary attachment.
The few pen jobs I've done haven't needed this though. The graphic is usually just a logo or company name with a bit of contact info. You can do this flat on the engraving table, engraving just one side of the pen. Upside of this is that you can do 20 - 30 pens at a time instead of 1 on the rotary. Saves a lot of handling.
Just my $0.02

[Barbara Buhse]

Shane,
You mentioned doing many pens at once... do you have a jig for this? Most of my pen work is one-at-a-time custom, but I'm sure someday I'll have need to do many of the same. I usually make templates/jigs for nameplates/etc. on the engraver itself, but for pens I imagine we'll have to break out the router.

[Gary Hair]

Shane,
You mentioned doing many pens at once... do you have a jig for this? Most of my pen work is one-at-a-time custom, but I'm sure someday I'll have need to do many of the same. I usually make templates/jigs for nameplates/etc. on the engraver itself, but for pens I imagine we'll have to break out the router.

I made my template for pens in the laser. I just drew out the outline of the pen and then copied that several times and lasered into some foam core. I can layout over 100 pens at a time - never had to do that many, but I could...

Gary

[James A. Wolfe]

Barbara,
When I decided I needed to add some volume to the pen engraving, I spent a little time cutting a profile with the laser out of 1/8" plywood until I got one that worked well. I support the plywood on small squares glued underneath. Then I duplicated it 24 more times on a bigger piece and saved the layout. After cutting the 25 profiles, I added a text box and changed the red vector lines to green so the laser would ignore them. Now I know that the layout is dead on the money and if I need to do 10 or 20 pens with the same text/logo, copy and paste as required.

Jim

[Mike Null]

I like Jim's idea but I've had to make two jigs. Both made with the router and a "V" or chamfer bit. One is a little deeper than the other to accomodate fatter pens. I do a lot of slimline (like Cross) so I needed a jig to handle that size.

[Barbara Buhse]

Thanks everyone, there are lots of different ways posted here, now I can pick what works best for me... I'm always thinking "wood wood wood" It didn't even occur to me to make it from foam core... I probably only need one to hold 12 or so at a time... although i wouldn't mind "needing" to do 100 all at once. Thanks everyone

Barbara

[Peter Zacarelli]

Barbara,
If you go to the laserbits site and in their tech tips in the Substrates section they have a tech tip named "Pen Fixture" which explains how to make a "jig" for multiply pens or anything for that matter. I hope maybe this might help you.

[Darryl Hazen]

Barbara,

You don't even need to buy foam core for this. You can cut a template out of cardboard.