Engraved Truss Rod Covers can be ordered here.

Engravings?

If you are interested in having an engraved pick guard or other item then you should be aware that I cannot engrave every type of material I offer on my web site. I use a laser engraver which does not react well with all materials.

If you are interested in having a material engraved that I cannot engrave then you can always take it to a local trophy shop in your area or an engraver that uses a rotary type of engraving system to do the engraving on the product I make for you.

The supplier I use for my engraving materials is Johnson's Plastics. You can browse their catalog here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/johnsonplastics/engraving2010/#/26

If you see something you like and I don't have it on my site then I can still get it. This supplier does offer materials for both Laser and Rotary engraving so let me know what you are interested in and I'll let you know for sure if it can be laser engraved or not.

You will need to provide me with a direct link to the catalog page in your email inquiry - Do NOT just send me a material item number. You will not get a reply unless a link is provided.

I use a Laser engraver / cutter to do all of my template and engraving work.

There are special materials formulated for laser engraving which are primarily a satin finish with some sort of core color so when the surface color is engraved it reveals the core color. Whatever the core color may be is the color the edge of the product will be as well.

It is possible for me to do some fill work to yield a different color than what the edge color would be but additional fees will apply.

Any gloss finish plastic that I offer for engraving is reverse engraved which means it is engraved on the back side and filled with color so it shows through the clear gloss layer. These gloss plastics are primarily a clear plastic with a thin backing color. The most commonly used by me are gloss white and gloss black. These materials result in an edge color the same as the overall color of the plastic. i.e. gloss black part, black edge.

These laser engravable materials are primarily and approximately 1/16" thick. Works great for truss rod covers, acoustic guitar pick guards and some electric guitar pick guards.

I can laminate another thin layer if requested but additional fees will apply.

Any of the acrylic material I offer can be laser engraved. Most engraving shows up as a gray or frosted type of appearance. Some acrylics's look better than others as far as contrast from material color to engraving is concerned.

A laser does not react well with standard pick guard materials such as PVC materials like b/w/b or similar or any of the pearls or tortoise materials. For this reason I do not offer engraving on standard pick guard materials. There are some occasion where it might work but more often than not I will not take on such jobs.

When I'm asked about engraving on standard pick guard materials I usually tell people I can make the pick guard and then they can take it to any trophy or awards shop that generally has what is called a rotary engraver and have the pick guard engraved there.

Submitting Art for Engraving

Any art submitted for engraving must be what is called camera ready. this means the art should be black and white art with the black part being the part that will be engraved. Camera ready Art means crisp and clear lines and opaque blacks preferably at a resolution of no less than 200 dpi.

Little web site jpg images of gif files or whatever from the web does not really work that well.

I'll work with whatever you give me and let you know if I expect issues with your art. If I do expect issues because of non camera ready art then you will be informed that there will be no refund for the product if it is not up to the standards you may be expecting once you receive it.

I may be able to clean up or re-create things you send me but a minimum $15.00 artwork setup fee will apply to any such situation.

Raster (pixel) type files are acceptable as JPG, TIF, or PSD formats. a minimum resolution of 200 dpi but no greater than 300 dpi is needed.

Please note that taking a low resolution file from the web, which is usually 72 dpi or 96 dpi, and dropping into photoshop or any other graphics program and changing the resolution to what I have specified is not a solution. This method does not give you a high quality image. It just scales up your image but does not give it the quality of a true high resolution image.

The best files to send me are vector files created in programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. I personally use Corel Draw 14 but I can accept Illustrator files. If sending Illustrator files they must be provided as a version 8 file or a CS uncompressed file. PDF vector files are also acceptable.

Please note that many of these vector programs today have an auto trace feature for tracing bitmaps. Occasionally I get someone who says they are sending me a good vector file but I can see that they just used an auto trace to create the file and this is not usually acceptable as a vector file for cutting but may in some cases be ok for engraving. Auto traced files are never as clean as when you trace things by hand in the program using the bezier tool.

Engraved Truss Rod Covers can be ordered here.