tranceamerica
Well-Known Member
Ok, we have a laser cutter in our office, so I tried laser marking my bottle caps - to identify the beer later, w/o a label.
first, I cut a piece of cardboard with 60 holes in it - 1 5/16" dia.
the bottle caps fit into these holes
Then, I loaded up my drawing (all drawings made in autocad, FWIW) with the artwork on it
put 60 bottle caps into the holes
ran the artwork
discovered that:
1) the type of bottle cap mattered. I had 3 different types (all gold caps, but slightly different finishes) The ones that worked the best were the "bright gold" ones w/almost an aluminum anodized finish. The bright/shiny ones and ones that are almost sliver didn't work so well - marking didn't show up so well on the bright shiny ones, and it sorta oxadized (got crud on it) on the silvery ones.
(hope that makes some sense?)
2) I'm worried that the caps will get dirty - the laser isn't exactly clean. I put a piece of clean cardboard under the caps (and of course, they will get sanitized before use...but still..
3) it was hard to register the caps - my hole should probably have been 1.25", and I should have used something thicker than cardboard - maybe 1/4" thick wood - to register the caps with. so, my markings were sorta off to the side.
end result though, is a more professional looking cap. I'll be trying this again w/changes. I'll take some photos that time for all to see.
first, I cut a piece of cardboard with 60 holes in it - 1 5/16" dia.
the bottle caps fit into these holes
Then, I loaded up my drawing (all drawings made in autocad, FWIW) with the artwork on it
put 60 bottle caps into the holes
ran the artwork
discovered that:
1) the type of bottle cap mattered. I had 3 different types (all gold caps, but slightly different finishes) The ones that worked the best were the "bright gold" ones w/almost an aluminum anodized finish. The bright/shiny ones and ones that are almost sliver didn't work so well - marking didn't show up so well on the bright shiny ones, and it sorta oxadized (got crud on it) on the silvery ones.
(hope that makes some sense?)
2) I'm worried that the caps will get dirty - the laser isn't exactly clean. I put a piece of clean cardboard under the caps (and of course, they will get sanitized before use...but still..
3) it was hard to register the caps - my hole should probably have been 1.25", and I should have used something thicker than cardboard - maybe 1/4" thick wood - to register the caps with. so, my markings were sorta off to the side.
end result though, is a more professional looking cap. I'll be trying this again w/changes. I'll take some photos that time for all to see.