I am furious!

I took three flat sided recivers to a trophy shop to engrave serial numbers and id information. I asked him to use his CNC miniature engraver that looks like a milling machine. I wanted it to look like a roll stamp. I did the artwork for him using a computer. I gave him the digital files.

Result...the depth is all over the board, mostly just a slight scratch. Some areas are quite deep. Some areas are double image. Basiclly...... he destroyed my receivers, aestitically anyway. It makes me sick to look at them. I am going to try to fly cut them but I am afraid that some areas will still remain.

I made a rock solid 20# jig to make sure all was solid and reproducible. When I checked on his progress the RX was cockeyed in the jig. He is clearly just an idiot.

I see guys all over the net getting home builds engraved at trophy shops. What is the proper technique for doing this?

I think I'll go have a beer and sulk.

I am sure you realize that there is no requirement for you to mark them at all, but it is a good idea to do so. Best thing to use is a New Hermes engraving machine. Only can get letters with that. Or take it to a trophy shop, which have now mostly gone to computer engraving.
What are you building?
Your engraving guy does sound incompetent.

Thanks for the reply. It's an AR15. Will the Hermes get deep enough? Like I said, I did take it to a trophy shop. He used a cnc rotary unit. The one Receiver that looks reasonable is only a few thousands deep. Sharpie marker obliterates it. The Cerocoat will certainly fill it in? I normally stick to nice bolt guns, single shots and muzzle loaders. They are my first black gun adventure. I wanted to make something nice. I may be able to sand it all off and try again. The deepest part is a logo. I might be able to hand chase it with tradtional engraving tools. If I try agin, should I be looking at laser engraving, or what?

I would look for a machine shop that has a CNC mill. I do my own engraving on a Prototrak mill using Millwrite.

That sucks, man. Sorry to hear it.

I use electrochemical etching. Plenty deep. Works really well on AR homebuilds.

Properly applied cerakote is a thin coating. It will show an 80-100 grit scratch if done right. Hard to see, but if you know where to look you will find it. In my early learning years, I assumed that it would fill and level a bit. It does not.

Good luck. If you are in Indiana, PM me and we can get you lined out so to speak.

Jeremy

I like the look of Prototrak mill using Millwrite. Unfortunately there are NO machine shops in my area.

He wanted to use the electrochemical etching process but I wanted a deeper result. I wanted it to pass as a factory lower. The prospect of explaining myself to an uninformed LEO and having my rifle confiscated does not appeal to me. The design I made up would pass muster to most LEOs.

Sometime it does not matter if you are right and totally legal. One of those times would be when they put the cuffs on!

I may try painting one today and see what I got. Most of it is so weak that I need to get the light just right to read it. I am not optimistic

I can get a pretty deep cut in soft metal with my pantograph (New Hermes). I've marked caliber on several rifle barrels and even in steel the lettering can be seen under Gunkote 2400. If you can find a jeweler willing to do it ask to look at his engraver. You will want to take a look at the vice that holds the piece and make a jig to hold your receiver and fit into the vice on the engraver. This is very important, almost every failure I've had engraving large pieces is because they didn't fit the vice tight enough and slipped. If you are in the Quad Cities area of Iowa/Illinois I can look at it for you.

Also you can use a blank piece of aluminum to see how deep the engraving will be before the actual work is done.

Yes, the New Hermes will get quite deep the cutter is adjustable and you can cut deep as you want. But those are manual machines and jewelers have mostly gone to cnc engravers.

If it is not that deep and it is flat AND you think you can file/polish/sand the marks out, I'd probably suggest that approach without being able to look at the items.

However, there is a possibility if your lettering is intact but just has varying depth you may be able to etch them deeper, either chemically or electro-chemically. I have a "Personalizer Plus" marking unit that works pretty well.

If your lettering is all there, you can try painting a resist on it, then cleaning out the letters using a fine and sharp dental pick and a good quality magnifying visor. Sadly it won't look like it was rolled as the etched letters will have a V bottom to them but it is pretty easy to do.

Sounds like a job for a hand engraver to repair the machine job. The extra money is probably worth it.
Don

Here is a link to the engraver I use.
www.thehandengraver.com
Mark does fantastic work.

No 100k mill tied up in our shop cutting text

Pan-o-grave is our go to one off machine to cut text or numbers

Well, I got the parts colored. I used Guncote. The lettering is uneven depth and the art work is double image/screwed up. That said I guess it is OK. The cuts that appeared shallow before coloring look decent now. I wish I could post pictures to this site.

And the rest of the story. I was preparing to sight the rifles. While attempting to swab the grease out of the bores I had a nasty surprize. One of them was full of congeled sand blasting grit. I could not get a rod in it. After some fussing and an hour cleaning I have one rifle with a badly pitted and unserviceable bore. It appears that the sandblaster intentionally filled the bore with grit then the parkerizer bonded it in place. If I had tried to fire it plugged with grit I think it would have probably burst. The vendor promised a quick replacement so, I won't say who they are. I guess product is moving so fast that there is no QC. I just can't get anything to go smoothly on this project!

You can post pics here; first get a photobucket account; free and easy. Upload your pics there; also real easy. One click will copy the pic and one more will dump it right here on your AR post. Easier and quicker than it took to write this. If you can build an AR rifle, you can do that.