This tip was mentioned, by Brian G., in another thread, as an inexpensive solution to creating holding jigs for silkscreen and/or laser engraving.

Thank You Brian. :-)

Along the lines of playdoh........I find more uses for automotive bondo for screen printing jigs than you can shake a stick at. I suspect that if you had multiple parts that it would make a nice jig for a laser as well.

Coat the piece you need set up in a jig with some simple automotive oil, or hold some saran wrap on the piece. Press the oiled or saran wraped piece into a prepared proper thickness of mixed bondo set on a flat board that can be clamped or fixed into place. In around 5-35 mins or so, the bondo will harden. You can then remove the piece and you will have a nice jig for multiple pieces in a laser, mechanical engraver, or many other production processes.

Brian G.

David,

I do something similar with HOT GLUE,

I take a piece of scrap aluminum large enough to hold the piece I am working with.

Spray WD-40 on the item (so the hot glue will not stick to the item - especially in the cracks & crevices)

Put a large enough amount of hot glue on the scrap aluminum, then press the item into the glue forming an exact impression. Only takes a couple of minutes to cool.

The item will not slip and slide around while it is being engraved.
The cost & time to set up are verrrrrrrry little, so over the years - I have a mold for every one of the medals I keep in stock. Now it just takes a minute to locate the mold I need and open the job on the engraver and a minute later it is engraved.

This works for the rotary engraver as well as the Laser.

Some of the items I have used this method to hold are:

Medals
coins,
cigarette lighters,
bracelets,
charms,
baseball bats,
pens,
key fobs

John

John,

That's a great tip! You and Brian get MVP status for the day :-)

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