Custom Coins

[Scott Shepherd]

@ David That IKONMetal product is pretty darn cool! Thanks for the input and ideas

Don't get too excited about Ikon metal. Do a search for it on here. It's been around for many years now and there's a reason no one ever mentions it.

[David Somers]

Scott,

I noticed you were one of the posters back when it was first introduced and a series of posts ran in SawMill Creek on it between 2007 and 2010? Seemed like the conversations varied between issues about warping, and concerns about the material ejected from the stuff as it was burned creating a mess and possibly causing harm to your optics? The other end of the spectrum seemed to be some folks who at least at the time seemed fairly happy with their first experiences with it? Then the conversations stopped in 2010?

Has anyone had some recent experiences with it that might help Walt? I wonder if they may not have re-formulated it in the intervening time or if the same level of difficulty and/or success is out there? I am curious as well. Seems like a potentially cool product for small scale work on a laser?

Walt,

Another thought for you, though it would not be a metal coin, would be to do an infill process I use in wood turning. You use engrave down to about 3/32" into your substrate. In my case that is wood of some sort. Then pour a finely powdered metal dust into it. I have used copper, brass, and aluminum, all in -100 mesh. Work it into the design carefully, and keep the dust a bit higher than the surface of the substrate. Then saturate the powder with an extremely low viscosity cyanoacrylic glue. Don't use an accelerator on it. Let it cure naturally. Once it has cured sand it down, using progressively finer grits down to the 4000 range, and buff the heck out of it to get a luster. Depending on your substrate you may go finer. They key to the process is a consistent -100 grit powder, at least in those particular metals I mentioned. And a fresh, very low viscosity CA glue. Old glue ends up with an increased viscosity and won't penetrate well. If you have gaps after you initially sand it you can pick the loose stuff out with a dental pick and apply more metal and glue. The result is quite striking, and can be used in some fairly detailed areas since the mesh size of the metal is pretty fine.

I can't picture this being useful for much beyond a 1 off kind of piece unfortunately. The sort of thing a silly wood turning hobbiest might do. But it is another possible technique for you?

And then of course, there is the possibility of using the laser to make a wood or Ikonmetal concept piece for a coin, and giving that to a foundry along with your graphic file as the basis for a casting. Or, using it for a mask for sandblasting a coin. Though I have trouble picturing that process for this.

Anxious to hear what your final outcome is!

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

Dave, back in those days, it was new and it had a lot of promise. It was promptly displayed at every trade show as some new, amazing product. I think when people started getting it (it was quite expensive), and realizing that it took a LONG time to engrave and cut, that it ran the price of the finish product up so high, so quickly, that it wasn't a great practical, low cost solution. Since those days, I have not seen it at a single trade show in the last 3 years or so. I don't know what happened to it, but I guess the laws of supply and demand came into play and it disappeared from advertising because people weren't flocking to it.

I think it's a clever product and it looks great, but my guess is that if no one has posted anything about it here in 3-4 years, then there's a lot to be read into that.

[David Somers]

Thanks Scott!! Appreciate the follow up. Someday, when and if I have a laser of some sort in hand, I might see what it is like, just for giggles. Will report back. Hopefully they have a sampler available to play with. Another curious material was laser frost. But at $2 for a 2 inch disk it is also spendy. Hmmmmm. I wish Walt good luck playing with this. Am curious to see what the final product is and how he approaches it.

Thanks again Scott!

Dave

[Chuck Stone]

If it is just a 'metal look' you're after, you might consider getting an inexpensive
casting kit, a quart of resin, some powdered bronze, copper or nickel silver and
use your laser to make a master in Corian, wood, acrylic.. whatever will work.
Make a mold of that and add the powdered metal to the resin and pour.
They look metallic (because there really is metal in them) and can even be
treated with chemicals to give them a 'patina' or verdigris, depending on which
metal you use.

[Walt Langhans]

The casting stuff would be very cool and I do have experience with metal working and casting but for what I'm thinking about I need to be able to turn these out at a very minimal cost and effort for it to make any money. I'm thinking that the plastic looking metal with the second color under it would be the way to go for what I'm trying to achieve. But it looks like my laser is having some issue so I need to figure that out asap... I'll be doing some troubleshooting tomorrow and hopefully figure it out, if not I'll be posting asking for some help.

[Mike Null]

I'm quite sure that Ikon metal has been discontinued. It was very expensive and very slow to engrave. It could not be laser cut either.

Spin casting is the way many challenge coins are made. if you want color and any volume at all you're better off going to China or Korea to source them.

[Dave Gates]

Mike Null is right...Ikonmetal is discontinued. I still have a couple pieces left.

For the coins, I have a customer making coins with a mold I lasered. I was provided the artwork, reversed the image in Corel, and lasered into wood and acrylic. The acrylic worked better and cleaned up easier between uses. He had 2 disc (front and back) and would stamp putty resin between the discs. After the resin dried, he would use metallic paints on them. The end result looked good if you don't mind a little rough edge. Kinda looks like old Roman coins.