Engraving

Engravers and Die sinkers offer a range of products and services from traditionally designed plaques, perpetual trophies and acrylic awards, to mass production of a vast range of marked, identified and engraved products. Engravers and Die sinkers have state of the art engraving, etching, machining and fabricating facilities.

Engraving is the practice of incising a design or pattern on to a hard, usually flat surface, by means of cutting grooves into the surface. Engraving may be performed as a decorative or identification process; such as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved. Engraving is also used to create “intaglio” plates which are then used for printing; this process is used to created engraved plates for money printing and for printing books.

Modern hand engraving is a specialised metalworking skill, which is most often used in the production and finishing of firearms and other metal weaponry, jewellery, and musical instruments. In commercial environments hand engraving is most commonly seen on jewellery and on trophies. For most other uses, hand engraving has been overwhelmingly replaced with milling using either computer aided engraving or machine milling. Retail engraving machines will either “drag” a diamond head to create the incision, or will, less commonly, “push” a metal spindle.

Engraving machines use a diamond stylus to cut “cells” into the surface, where each cell creates one printing dot later in the process. These machines are fully computer-controlled and the whole process of cylinder-making is fully automated. An increasing popular use for this technology is the transfer of photographic images onto engraved surfaces. It is common retail stores to have a small computer controlled engraving machines on site, for the inscription of jewellery, trophies and similar objects.