We’ve recently had some great pics shared on our Facebook page, which fit under the ‘I didn’t know you could create that with a Trotec Laser machine’!
Stuart Walker builds new racing hulls using one of our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser’s Speedy 500. He is building a new off shore racing cat hoping to beat the world record at over 170kmh from a 1/8 scale! That’s pretty amazing – good luck Stuart!
There’s only 3 more days to enter our Win a $250 Trotec Laser consumables voucher competition, and here are some more amazing entries from some of our businesses!
Entry from: Tomas @ The Engraving Crew – Glynde. One word… wow!
Gorgeous jewellery from: Natalia @ Made to Inspire.
This entry is definitely fit for the Royal Family! Thanks to Eddie Ptak at Adelaide Laser.
Hurry and enter today!!
Welcome to each and every one of you. We look forward to sending business your way!
Day one of our $250 voucher competition, and we already have some amazing pics in. You don’t have to be an engraving register registered business to enter, so get snapping, cracking and sharing for your chance to win a $250 Trotec Laser Australia gift voucher! View our competition page now to enter.
Focal Point Laser Engraving sent these awesome designed gumboots via Facebook:
Mobile Engraving Solutions sent in this liquor bottle. You can only see the engraving when it’s full. Cheers to that!
Evright.com (our Premium Sponsor!) sent in one of their recent medal tasks – made out of cardboard!!
The challenge is on… who will win?!
The Engravers Register and our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser Australia, have combined to throw down the challenge to our engraving businesses. On offer for the winner is a $250 consumables voucher* from Trotec Laser Australia!
All you need to do is share a picture of your favourite engraving job with us and let us know what material it was created on. If you feel like sharing the story behind the creation or the customer, please feel free.
Head to our competition page for more information and to enter. Competition entries will be shown on our gallery page.
Good luck! Entries close 28 February 2013.
Have you booked in for our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser’s first round of demo days for 2013?
Held once a month across Australia, these days are perfect to review Trotec’s range of exciting laser machines, ask any questions you may have, and also trial the laser machines against your business’ requirements. Trotec’s qualified staff are always available to support and advise the best machine that matches your requirements.
Upcoming demo days are almost full, so make sure you book your times now:
Perth: Tuesday, 29 January
Brisbane / Gold Coast: Monday, 4 February
Melbourne: Tuesday, 5 February
Sydney: Wednesday, 6 February
Contact Trotec Laser now on 1800 674 499 to ensure you don’t miss out.
Some more news from our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser Australia. Their new Pintrest board has been receiving a lot of hits and interesting pins lately.
Laser cut models for universities, architects and model makers! Follow them on Pintrest to see their interesting range of projects and machines.
Source: troteclaser.com via Trotec on Pinterest
No, we are not talking about an Irish dance here! Jigs are a very important tool in our industry to ensure accurate engraving of a variety of products.
Jigs are used in a variery of production environments, including our Premium Sponsor’s Evright.com. They are essential when working with a tool such as a Trotec Laser that offers unrivalled precision where even being a few millimetres off will be noticeable to a human eye.
Evright.com is one of the leading on-site engraving businesses and has attended many large scale events. The recent Lifesaving Championships held just a couple of months in Adelaide ago is a great example, where custom made jigs were essential to a safe and efficient engraving process for Evright.com‘s success.
Visitors and competitors from around the world would want an assortment items like medals and souveniers engraved with their name, but Evright.com had no way of predicting the volume interest on any given day, much less hour, while servicing the event. As such, Evright.com made a custom jig with areas for specific products from dog tags to pens.
Generally, Evright.com‘s jigs are made-up of two layers, one with the “holes” with a backing. They use acrylic because it’s an easy material to work with. There is no smoke, it’s available in a variety of colors, relatively cheap and available in a wide variety of consistent thicknesses – you might be fine using 2mm acrylic for a dog tag but for some oddly shaped item, additional flexibility may be required. Evright.com also use and recommend Trotec Laser machines, as do us here at the Engravers Register, to ensure your jigs and products turn out the best quality.
Trotec Laser’s Rayjet machine was a minimum requirement for Evright.com in addition to their jigs at the recent Lifesaving Championships.
One of our Premium Sponsors, evright.com recently completed a number of awards and plaques updates for Exact Mining Services, a well known mining company based in Adelaide, Australia.
Evright.com sent some images to us to include in our gallery and blog for inspiration for our registered businesses.
Exact Mining Services is well regarded in both the mining and civil industries for its work in open pit mining, quarry management and civil earthworks. They deliver specialist services in backfill, drill and blast, crushing and screening and tailings dam construction, as well as shotcrete and surface concrete supply. Through their group of companies they also have the capacity to extend services to clients, undertaking projects involving camp construction, road works, cement and sand haulage and transport logistics. FInd out more about them at Exact Mining Services
Here is another great story from one of our supporting sponsors, CNCKing.com on what they consider when designing and building 3D objects using laser cutter machines, such as the ones from our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser. The team at Engravers Register can’t wait to see their latest project – building a replica Eiffel Tower!
Laser Project Considerations by CNCKing.com
I’ve been designing for laser cutters for more than four years now and working on my 4th published book on the subject but regardless of the who/what/where of the design, the project considerations are always the same.
Budget
You have to decide almost from the beginning what kind of “laser cutting budget” you’ll allocate to the project at hand. Why so early in the process? Because material, cutting and assembly costs go up exponentially as the scale of the model and piece count go North. For instance, the Eiffel Tower design I’m working on now has only 35 pieces so far but will hover near 50 when finished and I gave myself an unlimited cutting budget for it, the original Eiffel Tower wasn’t cheap and nor will this one be standing at a meter high when finished. There isn’t any way to cut corners on a project like this, all the lattice work can’t be ignored so if you are going to go over budget, this is the model you want to do it on!
Piece Count
After you’ve given yourself a rough cutting budget, the next consideration is piece count. If the model is for a child, you don’t want something over 20-30 pieces but if it’s for a model master, more than 200 is fine. What I’ve found with time though is that sales and piece count are inversely proportional, meaning the more pieces your model has, the less sales it generates.
For instance, this Zulu Main Battle Tank below looks like fun to build but I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old kid to put it together – I’ve had 40 year old kids give it a go and they soon realized it was over their head! The problem isn’t the assembly process itself, it’s the tools and time required to glue, clamp and build the model up. It must be spread across a few days to allow the glue to dry and some minor refinements as the material is rarely the correct thickness. As mentioned previously, 6mm wood is rarely 6mm, usually it’s 6.4 or even more out of whack.
Material Choice
The material you intend to build your model with is critical! Why so important? Well, you want your model to be structurally sound. I would never give a kid a toy laser cut out of MDF, it simply won’t last and it’s a nasty material to work with nor would I try to build this plasma cut Dragon Fly using plywood. Some of these things sound like common sense but are too often overlooked! The general rule I use is that if a material is “strong” like plywood, it needs less supports than something “soft” like foam.
Take Away
It may seem like there is a lot to consider when building a CNC project, from material, machine type and budget to piece count, intended customer and their skill level. Don’t let this get in the way of the fun though! Even if you fail, the lessons you’ve learned can be applied to the next model!
Thanks to CNCKing.com for the above information… your experience in designing and building 3D objects is great for our registered businesses!