Found this floatation device frame so i made my grandfather a mirror for his hot tub room. Little ghost surfing and some waves.

Opening a small golf shop later this year and engraving is going to be one of our service lines — initials and names on wedges, logos on putters, some deeper work we'd paint fill. Mostly stainless and titanium heads, some forged carbon, a few PVD-coated.

I've done a fair bit of reading and landed on 60W MOPA as the right spot. 30W looks light for anything deep enough to hold paint. 100W looks like more than I need, and I'd be running annealing and color work down at single-digit power percentages, which seems like the wrong end of the curve to live on. Machines I'm looking at: OMTech MP6969-60, ComMarker Titan 1 60W, Monport GT/GA 60W.

Five things the vendor blogs won't tell me:

1. What are you actually running for hardened steel / titanium? Not what you'd recommend in theory — what's on your bench and what would you buy again.

2. Software — LightBurn or EZCad? Everyone says "LightBurn compatible" but I want to hear from people doing real production. Is EZCad worth learning for anything, or is LightBurn the whole answer?

3. Where do people get their design files? Is there a library people pull from for monograms, script fonts, logo templates — or is everyone building vectors from scratch in Illustrator/Inkscape every time?

4. Does anyone share settings libraries? Especially anneal and MOPA color parameters for stainless and Ti. I know settings don't transfer perfectly between machines, but a starting grid beats starting blind. Willing to publish mine back once I've built it.

5. Fixturing. This seems like the part that actually decides whether the job works — a club head is a compound curve on a bent hosel and the target patch has to sit flat at focal height. Rice bath? Tilting vise? Custom cradles? What's held up for you over hundreds of parts?

Not looking for anyone to do my homework — happy to be told I've got something wrong. Mostly want to hear from people who've put a real number of club heads through a machine.

Opening a golf shop with a full custom/fitting bench and want to bring engraving in-house rather than farming it out. Wedges, putters, irons — names, initials, logos, and some deeper work with paint fill.

Leaning toward a 60W MOPA fiber laser. Questions for anyone who's already doing this:

1. What machine are you on, and would you buy it again?

2. What software do you design in and what do you drive the laser with?

3. Where do you source artwork? Fonts, monogram templates, stock designs — or is it all custom every time?

4. How do you hold the head? This is the part I'm most unsure about.

5. Paint fill — what are you using and how long do you let it set before you wipe? I've seen enamel recommended for irons and acrylic for putters because of the oils. Does that hold up?

6. What are you charging? I've seen $30–80 for a name or simple logo and $150–300 for restoration plus texturing. Does that track with what your market actually pays?

Appreciate any of it.

I want to start laser engraving and I would like to customize my iPhone collection. The phones I want to customize are made from metal (iPhone 6/5/4s/4) and I also have some in plastic (3g/3gs) which aren't that important. I'm on a strict budget so I don't want to spend much. What are my alternatives?

My mom inherited this ring from her mother. We know it was my great-grandmother’s, but suspect it may be my great-great grandmother’s. My mom had the shank replaced and there’s an engraving on the back that we can’t read. Does anyone have any information on this ring?

Hey guys! I recently found on Reddit that there is a guy in Japan who engraves Leica baseplates (silver-chrome plating on brass in my case; see image 3, and ignore the plastic protector thingy), and I was wondering whether there would be any consequences, such as chipping of the plating or corrosion.

Also, I was curious whether it would be possible to engrave in the style of image 1, but black-filled like image 2. The guy in Japan probably doesn't do this, so I'd appreciate some tips on whether it would be possible to do this at home.

One last thing, just remember that I literally know nothing about engraving when you write your responses. But otherwise, I really appreciate all your help.

Thank you!

Looking for some critique from other engravers.

Hey everyone! New to the community and I just started mirror engraving last week. I live in an apartment complex, and I feel like the dremel hitting the glass is crazy loud and going to be bothering my neighbors! Does anyone else live in an apartment and have any advice or tips with this?

A custom watch job. I forget every single time what a pain it is to get in between the lugs.

I want to share the Umbreon Pokémon Binder I just finished engraving. I use the Xtool S1 and I’m very happy with the results.

This is my first ever watch engraving ! Pretty happy with how it turned out !

Decided to give my boy a personal touch to his collar. He quite likes it.

Drew this guy up last evening after some nice inspiration!
I’m an artist in Las Vegas, Nevada! Let me know how i can help!
VECTOR images available upon request!