Tri Color Cup

[Trey Tull]

I was at a birthday party the other night for one of my friends and he introduced me to a friend of his that owns a big grading company. He was holding a yeti cup that had his logo on opposite sides and we got to talking about laser engraving. He showed me his logo (black letters and the bulldozer was in red) and said he would really like to get that laser engraved into a white yeti. He said he was looking for 400+ cups , so doing color changing on the fiber isn't an option.

I have been thinking about ways to get the letters in black and the bulldozer in red but haven't come up with a great solution yet. Maybe engraving with a vinyl mask and airbrushing the red and black on. Is there anything else that I'm not think of that would make more sense?

[Gary Hair]

Screen printing, UV Printing, or pad printing depending on the size. For 400 screen printing would be the only way to do them economically.

[Trey Tull]

Screen printing, UV Printing, or pad printing depending on the size. For 400 screen printing would be the only way to do them economically.

His current cups are laser engraved and he wanted to stay with the engraving, but I'm with you in that I don't think it would be very economical. How does the printing(screen, UV, pad) hold up to dishwashers (you know they are going to put them in the dishwasher...) and normal use?

[Bruce Clumpner]

What goes first when cleaned in a dishwasher, the screenprinting or the seams on the cup.. machine washing is not good for either

[Scott Shepherd]

Yetis aren't dishwasher safe, laser engraved or not.

[Kev Williams]

400? Find a local fulfillment/promotional company and check out what it would cost to have them done in color. They can supply the bottles too. You can be a middleman and make a few bucks or just steer your friend(s) to them.

Only so much 'engraving' can accomplish. In color logos, not many options aside from MOPA (which isn't 'engraving' anyway)

[Ross Moshinsky]

Laser engraving = Silver engraving

Color = silkscreen/UV Print/Pad print

If they wanted 5, you could try doing something with your laser and color filling after. On 400, it would be a terrible idea.

I'd also be very careful wasting too much time on this project. People love to talk a big game around friends/neighbors but when they run the math of $20 a pop x 400 and realize they're spending $8k on coffee mugs, they tend to change from 400 pieces down to 20-30. Also you'll often find that these larger companies have partners. One might always want to spend money while the others are more conservative and watch the numbers more carefully.

I'd proceed professionally, but with caution. Make sure you get a fair deposit up front.

[John Lifer]

One way is to engrave both, with mask. and then add powder coating -red- to just the bulldozer. But unless you already do PCing, it might not be what you want to do. It does work.
But 400? I'd just offer to engrave through the white. Heck he could do combination white, red and black cups. But I DO agree with Ross. Unless he's forking over the $ for the yetis, up front, I'd not do it.
and that would be minimum. Maybe less expensive JDS or other brand might fit if he gets $ shy.