Today, most engraving is done by computer controlled machinery, or laser marking systems, especially for engraving in industrial applications. Read More…
Leading Manufacturers
Sprinter Marking, Inc.
Zanesville, OH | 740-453-1000Is your facility in need of high performance dot peen machines? Our top of the line machinery is guaranteed to meet all of your needs. We are your worry-free provider of identification systems. We will work with your team to implement our products into your business and our services are beyond compare. Our company has proven ourselves as an industry leader!

Automark
Lakeway, TX | 512-593-7100At Automark, our team of experts is ready and willing to tackle any of your challenging assignments. We supply marking systems for a multitude of industries such as medical, cosmetic, industrial, automotive, and more. All of our machines are manufactured to the highest quality, offered at a competitive price, and are guaranteed to last. Give us a call and a representative will speak with you today!

Laser Marking Technologies LLC
Caro, MI | 989-673-6690Laser Marking Technologies LLC has served the marking machinery and laser cutting services industries for over 20 years. Our years of experience and advanced technology make us a leader in marking machinery and laser-cutting services.

Big City Manufacturing Inc.
Houston, TX | 800-373-7769Big City Manufacturing is a leading producer of marking systems—card printers (with chip encoding and magnetic stripe options), metal plate (compact to industrial productions) and plastic printers (desktop to multimodular). We do on-site name plate, signage and tag production.

Isotech, Inc.
Hatfield, PA | 800-252-2645Isotech offers a full range of Fiber, C02, UV, Green, MOPA, Nanosecond, Picosecond and Femtosecond laser systems for marking, cutting and welding of many substrates. Isotech offers both standard systems as well as fully automated or custom systems depending on your specific requirements. Integrated, automated solutions with conveyors, palletized pick and place, rotary dial tables, hoppers, and robots are all part of the engineering we offer.

Ace Laser Tek, Inc.
Deerfield, IL | 847-537-4202Ace Laser Tek brings you mobile laser marking systems as well as a variety of other applications such as marking, engraving and etching by laser markers. We also do custom label nameplates along with other marking solutions. In business since 1988, you can depend on quality solutions and great customer service! Contact us today!

Before the advent of modern engraving equipment, a handheld burin or stylus was used to engrave an object, and for some smaller processes and more intricate, decorative purposes, hand engraving is still used. Today it is restricted to a few narrow fields, but is still seen in jewelry, firearms, small decorative pieces and some musical instruments.
Most common however, are engraving machines controlled by CNC and CAD precision programming. Widely available engraving machines are fairly simple to use and are able to engrave a number of surfaces such as metal, glass or plastic. These are often able to engrave on both straight and curved surfaces. Diamonds are typically used as the stylus, especially for machines required to engrave on harder materials and metals.
Engraving equipment consists of three parts: a stylus or marking tool, a controller, and a surface. The stylus acts like a pencil, tracing designs on a surface. The controller, or computer, controls the laser's direction, pressure and speed. The surface is the material that the stylus acts on, the engraver's canvas.
A highly-skilled engraver can achieve high levels of detail in his or her work, and therefore engraving is often used for its counterfeiting restricting properties. Bank notes, checks and other confidential or restricted papers use engraving machines to achieve details which cannot be replicated by standard printers.
Engraving can also be used for decorative purposes - to inscribe a pattern or image onto the surface of an object, or it may be used to create a template die or stamp for printing the pattern or image onto another surface or material. Engraving can be a fairly quick process depending on the intricacy of the pattern or design. Simpler designs can be completed by a computer controlled engraving machine in a matter of minutes.
Manual engraving will take longer and typically with less precise results. Laser engraving is the fastest engraving method and since laser markers do not have tool heads or machines which wear out, after the initial expense of buying the machine, they are a fairly economical marking method choice. Laser engraving is a clean and permanent process that doesn't damage the product being engraved. It also doesn't produce any by-products.
The most common type of laser engraving equipment is the X-Y table, where the workpiece is stationary and the laser moves in X and Y directions, creating vectors.