Well then, in honor of the new board and my employee Amanda's last day with me (I'm doomed, dooooooomed!) I'll start us off with a report from the old board of one of her finer works.

These were done for a couple of people from the National Groundbased Intelligence Center. When they first called asking about engraving on swords it sounded like they just wanted a name.

No such luck. Text from hilt to tip. And with a two day turn around. She accepted the job, though, and was able to pull it off. Go her.

Sei

If I'm not out of line, can I ask what you charged to do these swords? I had a potential customer come in with 12 samurai (spell?) swords that her boss wanted engraved with two logos and text. They were not as wide as those in your pictures. Needless to say, I didn't get the job. I was to broken up about it. We would have had to make a jig to hold them too.

Kathe
D&D Engraving
Tulsa, OK

That's the painful part. Shop labor at the time was $45 per hour (I didn't set this) skilled or unskilled.

Amanda quoted an hour each for them. All said and done with setting up the graphics, getting the swords stable, and actually engraving them it was probably 5 hours of work.

So we got $90.00 for the pair.

If I was allowed to charge a reasonable rate for the work we do (and I wasn't at lunch when the price was quoted) I would have probably said $150 each. Though from the look of the customer, they wouldn't have paid it. They thought $90 total was expensive.

If you're doing 12 it will be worthwhile to build a jig, assuming the swords are all consistent. Ours were high quality, real officers swords. There are a lot of knock-off katana (samurai swords) being produced.

If it were me, without seeing the blades or knowing the text, I would say, with padding, 2 hours to build a reliable jig, 1 hour to get the curve in the computer properly for setting up your text. And then one hour each for the swords to set them in the jig and engrave the text.

Sei

What kind of laser are you using? Is you laser big enough to do it all in one pass?

Thanks!

Tom,

I'm not Sei (and he's glad:-) but the sword was diamond dragged.

David "The Stunt Engraver" Lavaneri
DGL Engraving
Port Hueneme, CA