Large Number of Wine Glasses

[Tim Bateson]

I have a community service organization needing nearly 300 wine glasses with detailed logos on each for a Christmas party.

The time & labor to do 300 wine glasses is nearly a week for me (working 4-6 hour days). Placing a glass in the rotor, engraving detailed logo, cleanup & pack is 5+ minutes per glass or 25-30 hours of engraving & labor. Now, this is a low end (pay wise) job, any suggestions for speeding it up or simplifying it?

[Anthony Scira]

Good for you for landing that job. I could never compete with the silk screen glasses when they are looking at that quantity.

The most I do are custom ones for bridal parties. So 10 at a time.

[paul jeran]

Instead of engraving on the bowl of the glass, try engraving on the base from the back. I have done cases of glasses for a winery this way and they really like them. I have placed 4 wine logos on the N-S-E-W parts of the base with quick engrave time. I also made a fixture to load 6 glasses at a time so I was cleaning/boxing the last 6 while 6 others were being engraved.

glass.jpgIMG_0742.jpg

[Jess Phiz]

We do mainly glassware, we just outline trace everything on Coral Draw before using the image on the glass (with our laser software (Thunderlaser v4.47) if there is a picture it takes longer then a shape/text)
We also found that using a Product called 'Rub n Buff' in the glasses gives an awesome finish, so good that when any liquid is put in the glasses you can see the writing still. The only two that work with any joy are the silver or white (we mainly use silver). It takes a little bit more work to do but has an awesome finish and as far as I'm aware we're the only one in the country using it for that on big scale.
Our average etch time per glass is 2 mins, even for detailed logos.

I have a community service organization needing nearly 300 wine glasses with detailed logos on each for a Christmas party.

The time & labor to do 300 wine glasses is nearly a week for me (working 4-6 hour days). Placing a glass in the rotor, engraving detailed logo, cleanup & pack is 5+ minutes per glass or 25-30 hours of engraving & labor. Now, this is a low end (pay wise) job, any suggestions for speeding it up or simplifying it?

[Kev Williams]

Good luck. I have a local wine bar just itching to have me do 100's of wine glasses with their logo. The problem? They have a sample that was acid etched. Badly acid etched, there's gobs of acid burns all over the place, but the acid etching shows up WAY better than my LS900's etching, so they're wondering if there's a way to make mine show up better...

One way is my trusty Chinese Triumph. It will literally melt the glass behind itself. REALLY shows up nicely! ---right up to the point the glass breaks. Can't take that much heat. Less heat ends up looking exactly like the LS900's work. I'm thinking of filling a glass with water if I can figure out a good cork to keep the water in. And a good place for the water to go if it doesn't work!

That all said, to speed things up you might try ridiculously low res on the Y axis, like 200 lines per inch, glass is pretty forgiving. You can run the X axis at whatever res you want since it has no effect on engraving speed, keeping it fairly high res should keep the edges smooth.

[Kevin Gregerson]

With 35 watts yer kind of sol. If you had 50+ watts you could get away with a longer focus lens and just etch a whole table of glasses at a time on one side. I agree with the etch the base as it will give you the ability to do multiples at once. Simply just convert the text to curves in Coreldraw and drag the image across itself for a reverse. Tell them you'll give them a 25 percent discount if they let you do it this way because you just don't have enough time to do that many glasses individually. Show them a sample and I'm sure they'll say yes.

Good luck. I have a local wine bar just itching to have me do 100's of wine glasses with their logo. The problem? They have a sample that was acid etched. Badly acid etched, there's gobs of acid burns all over the place, but the acid etching shows up WAY better than my LS900's etching, so they're wondering if there's a way to make mine show up better...

One way is my trusty Chinese Triumph. It will literally melt the glass behind itself. REALLY shows up nicely! ---right up to the point the glass breaks. Can't take that much heat. Less heat ends up looking exactly like the LS900's work. I'm thinking of filling a glass with water if I can figure out a good cork to keep the water in. And a good place for the water to go if it doesn't work!

That all said, to speed things up you might try ridiculously low res on the Y axis, like 200 lines per inch, glass is pretty forgiving. You can run the X axis at whatever res you want since it has no effect on engraving speed, keeping it fairly high res should keep the edges smooth.

I don't know if the ls900 offers this option but can you play with the density settings a bit, if so you'll find that you can do quite a bit here.

[Bernie Fraser]

Paul , What a great idea , thanks for posting that .

[Keith Colson]

If you laser cut a fixture that could clip two or three glasses together and your rotary engraver is long enough you could turn two or three at a time. I should look at this myself as this would be handy..

I just did my first set of glasses a few days ago and quickly realised that the margin can easily be small. Who wants to pay more that 30 to 40 bucks for a set of six? My glasses cost $15 for 6 and I did 40mins on the laser and about 60mins on the artwork. That's $100 labour right there.

If you wanted to be really efficient for huge volume you could have an automated loader. It would be totally cool but justifying the development would take some real desire. For now I will charge $60 a set and lose most customers (I guess).

Cheers
Keith

[Bill George]

I would use your laser to make sandblasting masks, and purchase a inexpensive or have someone else do the blasting for you. You can purchase enclosed sandblasting cabinets, but do you have enough air compressor to handle the job?

[Tim Bateson]

...We do mainly glassware, we just outline trace everything on Coral Draw before using the image on the glass (with our laser software (Thunderlaser v4.47) if there is a picture it takes longer then a shape/text)...

...Simply just convert the text to curves in Coreldraw and drag the image across itself for a reverse...

I'll have to examine/test this process.

...try engraving on the base from the back...

Great Idea

I would use your laser to make sandblasting masks...

We've considered this, but with the time to laser that many masks, applying masks, blasting, and cleanup, wouldn't the time & cost be higher?

[Bill George]

When I was doing metal work with my CNC plasma I had masking material on a roll. I used a vinyl knife attachment for the machine head to cut out the masks.

I think you could cut a whole array of masks at one time with your Laser and then hire some low cost help to apply the masks and sandblast. Even thou the blasting could be done in a cabinet, you still would need eye protection, good ventilation and a breathing mask just to make sure. Not sure IF you could re-use the cut out sandblasting mask but I suspect not. Others on here are much more knowledgeable than I am.

[Kevin Gregerson]

I'll have to examine/test this process.


Great Idea


We've considered this, but with the time to laser that many masks, applying masks, blasting, and cleanup, wouldn't the time & cost be higher?

If you do a sheet of them and make sure the cut mark for each mask is the same height from the text so you can simply just apply it to the lip and go. This lets you do it in larger sets.

[Martin Boekers]

Check out a company like this...

http://www.thetipsygrape.com/Bulk-Cl...-Prodview.html


It would be hard to do it yourself with this pricing...

[Bill Stearns]

TIM -
I get glassware engraving orders, from time to time, in the range of 300 or so pieces. A while back, I discovered this simple, but efficient universal glassware holder on-line. Was $29.95 plus S&H = $40.63. It has worked well for me - 'though I still do the glasses one-by-one; projects seem to go quick enough. Matronics-Corporation.com - Salkum, WA. (You should find the item on their site under "links" > "glass etching > "round glass". May be of interest 'n help to you - maybe, not? As for packing? - find some school kid who'd like to earn 'few bucks. (don't seem to be able to a attach photo of the item; but I'll try. Good luck!

Bill

[Kev Williams]

I've yet to find the customer that would accept the base being etched rather than the body. The wine glasses my potential customer has, the logo that goes on the glass, plus a small added hash mark, are positioned exactly to determine a 2 ounce or 5 ounce pour... And the glass mfr's logo is already etched on the bases.

--sandblasting-- Someone on the board here has a video of the process of sandblasting some mugs. The problem as I saw it, was, while the mugs were getting done fairly quickly, it took 2 guys to do it. Me, I don't have a 2nd guy. (I do, but he's always busy earning money engraving something else). And anyway, seems the profit after paying the second guy to double the output would be much less than one guy doing them half as fast.