I can do this... I think!

[Anthony Welch]

I very much enjoy reading this forum and hope one day to pick up laser engraving as a part-time business and maybe a full time family business. This forum is, as has been stated by others, awesome! Very informative, helpful and outstanding comradery is what you have here. I haven't participated before, because I feel if I can't contribute, I shouldn't participate. But maybe this idea I have may help others and may help me get started as well.

Seeing a co-workers x-mas gift and noting it was laser engraved, I began researching the topic and found this forum several months ago. I have this idea that I can learn to engrave and teach my wife how to do it so she can remain an at home mom and I'll assit often. We have 3 trophy shops and several sign shops locally, only one trophy shop notes they use a laser, but no gifts, photos or personally engraved items. I don't want to "bust-up" into their business and compete with them. The gift and personal engraving, I don't feel, that in my area, that this will be profitable alone. So, I've been waiting for a "niche" that I can run with. I think I have found something that'll help get me started. But I need your help, if I may.

I'm a registered nurse by trade and my director comes to me from time to time for ideas to solve some delimas that she has. Some of my ideas will work, but are more than the budget will cover. Anyway, last week she states we are losing suture sets that are getting mixed with other surgical sets and no one can tell who's instruments belong where and some are getting lost. Knowing what I have learned here, that medical instruments can be lasered with Cermark, these instruments can be lasered identifying them as to what set or department they belong with (there are, by the way, hundreds of different sizes and shapes of instruments) Ok, that's my idea. I would think that most every hospital would have this problem. Now, how profitable this is only you guys know. What I can't see "in my minds eye" is to how I can get a laser and corel draw to find these very odd shaped instruments on the laser table without alot of "ciphering" and "trial and error". If you guys can help simplify matters, it will be very much appreciated to me and maybe others.

I'm sorry this is long winded, especially for a newby without a laser.

Thank You!

[Bruce Volden]

Anthony, I'm sure some / most of the surgical instruments will fit on a scanner! Scan them, trace them, vector them, cut them out of acrylic and place in laser. Assuming you save the "jig / template", you'll be able at any time to slip the instruments onto the jig and mark away. Does this help??

[Shaddy Dedmore]

One thing that MIGHT work, is to place the instruments on a scanner and scan them in. Keep the picture real sized. Use photo processing to make the tools dark enough to engrave on a piece of wood. In corelDRAW (or whatever you're using), make outlines around the tools. Engrave a piece of wood. Use that wood as a template. Then, theoretically, for future use, whatever you type in the Outlines, should match up with the engraved wood. Put a name or symbol in that area, and put the tool in the corresponding spot on you template. After you have the outlines, you can get rid of the photo portion. In Corel, it'd be easy to keep the outline and photo separate by using Layers.

That's probably how I'd do it. That's what I did for LaserSketch oval marble pieces (their ovals aren't alway exactly consistant though, so there's still some "eye work".

Let us know how it goes. Welcome to thte site

Shaddy

[Lee DeRaud]

Has anybody verified that Cermark-lasered markings on stainless steel (or whatever) will survive going through an autoclave?

[Mike Mackenzie]

Lee makes a good point! The other thing you need to check on is will the Hospital allow a chemical on surgical equipment? ULS has a method that several MFG's use to mark surgical equipment without cemark. You may want to investigate this possibility.

[Bruce Volden]

Guys, from my experience once Cermark is burnt onto metal (most) you CANNOT get it off without removing (grinding / buffing) a microscopic layer of the metal itself. Believe me, I have made so many mistakes I went out and bought a Baldor buffer and grinding compound. I mark LOTSA knives, in fact I'm presently working on a 100 pc. run for Federal Ammo for the Vandalia, OH trapshoot. However, even when it is "ground" off you are still able to see the mark in the right reflection of light. Any trapshooters out there going to OH?

I have great success marking stainless. Brass, polished aluminum, chrome etc. I can't seem to mark so I no longer waste my time. Anyway just my 2 sense worth?

[Michael McDuffie]

Guys, from my experience once Cermark is burnt onto metal (most) you CANNOT get it off without removing (grinding / buffing) a microscopic layer of the metal itself. Believe me, I have made so many mistakes I went out and bought a Baldor buffer and grinding compound. I mark LOTSA knives, in fact I'm presently working on a 100 pc. run for Federal Ammo for the Vandalia, OH trapshoot. However, even when it is "ground" off you are still able to see the mark in the right reflection of light. Any trapshooters out there going to OH?

I have great success marking stainless. Brass, polished aluminum, chrome etc. I can't seem to mark so I no longer waste my time. Anyway just my 2 sense worth?

Bruce, I do polished brass, aluminum and an ocasonal chrome piece. The softer metals require big power to make a good mark. I use 25% speed and 100% power on my Epilog 70W Legend 24. I have failed to get a good mark on shiny chrome wrenches which makes me wonder if they are clear coated. Less shiny chrome like sears ratchet wrenches works well.

I too have goofed and yes, you can still see the mark even after a round of wet 'N dry sanding.

Michael

[Mark Sipes]

I believe that Cermark need to bond to Iron. Chrome is highly reflective and lacks a large amount of iron to bond to. I just tried to mark chrome plated keychains with cermark 4% speed 100% power 25w. The marking was hit and miss.... and rubbed off.

Mark

[Michael McDuffie]

What I can't see "in my minds eye" is to how I can get a laser and corel draw to find these very odd shaped instruments on the laser table without alot of "ciphering" and "trial and error". If you guys can help simplify matters, it will be very much appreciated to me and maybe others.

I'm sorry this is long winded, especially for a newby without a laser.

Thank You!

Anthony,
I do a huge amount of one offs and odd shaped stuff. I use several methods for getting the mark on the item and not on the laser table.

I used to scan and paste into the drawing, especially for handcuffs.

More often, I draw some long straight lines that will extend well past the item and a box around the text. Put the lines tight up against the text. I then send it to the laser and burn it onto a piece of heavy card stock. I can then line every thing up by using the lines in the card as a guide.
Don't forget to toggle the lines off and resend the job, unless you want the item cut into bite sized pieces.

I also have several jigs made up.
For pens and small diameter things, I have a piece of 1X2 pine with a V groove down the center. For Mag lights and bigger cylinders, I made one with some MDF and press board. It's a pair of pieces of MDF about 1.5 inches by 7 or so glued to the press board so the the center of the space between them is exactly 3 inches down form the top. That way I know exactly where the center is.
Draw up some lines as guides and burn them on the press board, glue the MDF right on the lines and you are ready to go. I also burned a ruler into the top of the MDF rails so I could quickly measure items.

Hope this helps rather than confuses.

Maybe we could start a jig thread and I'll take some pictures. After I eat my tacos that is.

Michael

[Rodne Gold]

No problem with cerdeck/metalmark or most of the other generic metal marking pastes. We mark 100's of titanium artificial hip joints and tons of other surgical stuff with it with no problems with autoclaves , lots of ppl are walking around with our engraving inside them.

In your case Its easier to do stuff like that by just using a red beam pointer that tells you where the laser will fire and manually positioning. You are probably not going to be marking large batches of the same instrument rather than a batch of major amounts of totally different stuff belonging to one dept.
We can start and stop the engraving at various points with our laser
Like start from a home reference , start where you move the head by hand or jog it , start from the bottom of the engraving , start in the centre of an item, start at a reference point you set which is not home and stop at all these points too
So its real easy to take a piece of engraving that fits on the part you want to laser , move the red beam to where you want it to begin and hit the start button
Got another different piece , same thing.
Corel which is the package most laser guys use allows you to send ONLY the slected item for printing and does not have to send the whole page , you can grab a line of text and send it and it starts where the text starts , not the edge of a page etc so you know the EXACT size your engraving will be.

Being able to start at the centre is very useful for stuff that not regular or is round and oval. Centres are easy to find.
For example we can put a bowl with a raised lip into the laser , position the head dead centre of the bowl , tell the laser to stop where it started and then autofoucus and engrave the inside of the bowl without the head hitting the lip as it wont want to go to home position after the engraving. The only way to clear the lip is to be able to start in the centre and you take a huge amount of guesswork out of having to do it some other way.
A digital vernier is an invaluable tool , buy one for measuring.
You know whats real good for making single item holding jigs is modelling clay , as you can get angles and positions sometimes very difficult to get with rigid jigs. Use glasers putty if you want to use the holders again as it hardens over time and is cheap. Nice thing about a laser is you can use just about anything to keep your item in position. wood scrap , toilet tissue cores , whatever you can find!!

I wouldnt bother making machine specific registered templates unless you are doing large amounts of the same item and absolute positioning is critical. Dont rely on using a home position to make templates as some lasers allow restting or fine tuning of a home position or change it if being flashed with firmware. What I mean is that dont think the home position of a laser is going to be the same always , so the jig you made using it might not be accurate later. Make a template the registers off a start point on that template , its easier to position the red beam (a beam that should be in EXACT alignment with the actual laser beam) at a start point and work from there. The ability to manually position your laser head at a start point (by hand , not jogging) is invaluable. Most displays will also give you a x/y coordinate reading of where your laser head is on the table , you can often write this down and get an exact position at some later time.
By far the easiest way to make jigs of flatish objects is to scan and trace the scanned outline as has been discussed.
Put the engraving inside the traced outline , put a piece of board or paper in the laser , engrave the outline , lay the object atop it , autofocus , send the engraving and it should all line up.
Jig making and templates often require some lateral thinking and creative solutions. We make masters for spin casting and these are laser engraved on both sides and ofen have to be engraved deep each side in PERFECT register and mostly these are NOT bilateral , ie are often irregular shapes like a map. We have made a system where we can engrave and cut one side , flip the item over and engrave the other in perfect register.

On some items , it's difficult to see the red beam pointer (clear acrylics etc) so either make templates for these or use a piece of tissue or tracing paper taped to the item to make it visible.
Here' s a nice tip , use the cheap paper based self adhesive vinyl transfer tape on an object and then engrave it with very low power and high speed so that the engraving just marks the tape , if it lines up , strip the tap and engrave for REAL. Great for checking position.
A self centering vice bolted to the centre of a plate is a huge aid to engraving , the centre position is always the same and anything that can be held will always have the same centre relative to the machine home position (once again , the laser must be able to engrave from a centre outward to use this well. We also engrave a piece of black anodised ally with a grid relative to home and then place objects on this grid as we then know exactly where to start with them in the drawing , IE if we put a zippo at a point on the grid , we know where to start our engraving , often its easier to put multiples on the grid in the machine and step and repeat the engraving. iff you put an object on the table at regularily spaced intervals , all you have to do is make sure the first one is fine and step and repeat at those intervals.
We have also often found it quicker to engrave even largish qtys (especially cerdeced stuff) on a one by one basis , often the hassle of making the templates , the way the laser travels , laying out the items and the fact that some of the metal marking pastes stain stuff if left on to long as well as the worry that something goes wrong and you lose a whole laser full of expensive promo products all engraved at the wrong place , make this so. (staining is a big problem with aluminium stuff or crush type finishes)

I use the word "cerdec" as a generic name for metal marking pastes , we get a lot of different types here , most work well tho we use diff stuff for diff surfaces (some types stick better to a surface than others), we also reuse ours , we recover the unused powder after rinsing by boiling off the rinsing water.
All of them are really only fantastic on stainless and titanium (lots of surgical stuff is titanium) , most other metals give variable results and some metal surface finishes dont mark at all. To do metals , lots of them , quick , you need a galvo YAG laser. One of the big problems with using metal pastes is the rinsing , some items like pens need to be dissasembled as rinsing rusts springs and other internal components and some items just can't take water. Do NOT do silver , brass or copper with these pastes , you might and most likely will get a marking , but its not going to withstand the abraisive cleaners (like brasso) used on these to remove tarnishes.
Be careful about coatings , a lot of metal products are dipped in a clear coating that is very thin and invisible , and this wont allow any decent marking , removing it can be problematic. ALWAYS tell your customer that they must be prepared to sacrifice one object of a large run if you being asked to laser something you have not done before or need to see what speed and power is best for it or if indeed it IS laserable. Try a small mark in a discrete place.

Buy a laser with a driver that allows you max flexibility in positioning ans start points if you do intend to go into your chosen niche area. Also look for one with BIG z clearance if you can , we have great lasers with large bed sizes but cant fit anything higher than 160 or 180 mm , and this has been a small limiting factor.

You can make a good living suppyling trophy and sign shops with various products with a laser and there are zillions of them (products and services) , so the market for your stuff looks good.
I do trophys and signage so see what I do with our lasers
http://www.tokerbros.co.za , it might give you an indication of what they will want.
Regards and good luck

[Lee DeRaud]

No problem with cerdeck/metalmark or most of the other generic metal marking pastes. We mark 100's of titanium artificial hip joints and tons of other surgical stuff with it with no problems with autoclaves , lots of ppl are walking around with our engraving inside them.

Thanks, that's good to know. Not being a metallurgist, I didn't know what the interaction was between the coating, the laser, and the underlying metal, or if it was intended for extreme environments.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Rodney,

I am not sure how they get approvals like FDA in S. Africa but here in the US it is a different story. They are very strick about these kind of things. Anything that goes into the body has to go through many tests and get many approvals before they will even consider doing it.

We did a medical application that took 18 months of tests before it passed and was approved by the FDA.

This was my point about using Cermark on medical instruments. Better to be safe and do the investigation than to be sorry and find out after a lot of investment that you can't do it.

I would just like to add something maybe people don't know. If you read the MSD sheet on Cerdec The first page in Large Bold Letters it states.

WARNING: This product contains crystalline silica known to the state of California to cause CANCER.

Rodney I don't know if you have ever read this but you may want to before doing any more hip replacement parts.

[Gary Shoemake]

Hi Mike

I have seen that description before and have wondered about the wording. Is there something in the water or air that makes Californians more susceptible than most? I'm really not trying to be funny, but it does seem a little different from other warnings. Enquiring minds want to know. If you have a thought on this please share it.

Gary

[Mike Mackenzie]

Gary,

I just think the Politics here in Ca dictate how we live. I am not sure if there are different MSD sheets for different states but the bottom line is that if you plan on using Cerdec on something that goes into the body It would be smart to do a little homework and find out if you would be liable for any consequences that might occur.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Mike;
Yea, crystalline silica may cause cancer- if inhaled daily in large doses over a long period of time. Purpose on the can is to insure you don't inhale too much of the stuff when using it- not to limit use for marking!
I fear that this is yet another case of the ever growing (and almost solely American) trend of over-reaction to over regulation.
Remember the company in Texas that went out of business because the USDA banned the use of red dye #9 (whatever) because it could be harmful? They were using it to make rat poison!!!
Maybe getting close to that time to buy two sheep and move to New Zealand...
george