Nickel Plated Dog Tags

[mike wallis]

Hi Everyone, I have a customer that is requesting a photo be laser engraved on nickel plated dog tags. This will be for military purposes but not likely to be used in the field. This is the first I've seen of these and am not sure what the process is used to accomplish what is shown in the photo. The customer dose not have the tags so I will be providing them as well. Basically two things are required, they need to be shinny (Nickel, chrome) and a photo needs to be engraved on them.

Dose anyone have a lead on a supplier of a product like this? I'm assuming that there would be a coating over the nickel and when engraved the coating would be removed.

Any ideas or leads are greatly appreciated.

[Vicky Orsini]

Hi Mike. I don't know if our lasers can do this. This particular image looks like it was made by one of the Roland Metaza MPX machines. It's purely decorative, so I don't know what the "military purposes" would be, but it won't hold up to any kind of abuse, no matter how minor.

[Stephen Beckham]

Second on Vicky's comments.

I researched to purchase a Metazza or MPX-60/70/80 series boxes, but found that it was not going to be cost effective for my store. It does an impressive photo appearance on their tags, but the carbide tipped print heads supposedly don't hold up as well as advertised.

Honestly, never touched one, just saw their finished product and reviewed other's comments while doing the research!

[Gary and Jessica Houghton]

Chewbarka.com has nickle-plated tags. I agree with the others about the photo though. Good luck.

[Bill Cunningham]

Why not use stainless tags and cermark em! The picture will last on cermarked stainless

[Eric Allen]

Heh, Bill beat me to the punch I second the idea of stainless and Cermark. The adhesion is fantastic with that combo. You can also Cermark the nickel if they insist on it, though I haven't tried photo work on nickel.