Laser Engraving a Custom Stainless Steel Mug for @Exyle and @blockbrothers - Part 2 - Manufacturing Process

Hello fellow steemians & SkarNoze fans,

in my last post I was announcing first collaboration on Steemit with @exyle and @blockbrothers, I completely forgot to mention that @blockbrother is also a Steem witness, I have since edited my first post but I think it's important to give this information as the witnesses really helps the platform to grow, voting for good witnesses is crucial.

I did my due diligence today by adding them to my witness list, if you feel like it you can do the same here:
https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses

Sample check and order

This out of the way, we can continue with the preparation of those stainless steel mugs. In the first post I told you that like 3 days after contacting the mug factory the salesman was in my office with a sample.

I did a quick QC and sent few photos to @exyle for final approval then I placed the order of about 10 pieces.

• Why 10 pieces?
  I'm not familiar with the engraving of cylindrical shapes and this is a real challenge for me.

Few day later the mugs were in delivered directly by the factory salesman.

On the right side of the picture above you can see an old sample, a round tube I did for Liberté BMX, a company based in Paris (France).
I hope to get a similar result and that project was a big challenge at the time ...

Brush Process

Next, I'm visiting an old friend, Mr Hsu the owner of the best polishing facility I know, he will brush the mugs personally.

• Why do I need to brush the mugs?
  Well, engraving a mirror surface is difficult with my laser so I did not want to waste too many mugs in testing, so brush them was a no brainer. I asked the factory if they could sell me the mugs already brushed but the MOQ (minimum order quantity) convinced me to do otherwise ...

Man, the brushing job is no joke, the brush wheels are turning at high RPM and any mistake can make serious injuries...
I'm very happy that the owner of the shop did the job for me, his experience will play a big part of the success of this project.

Here is the mug after first brushing pass:

The second pass is done with a less aggressive material, if anyone know the name in English please comment below I will correct the post. Thanks in advance :)

After an hour or so all the mugs are all done, I also asked the boss to brush some Stainless thermos for a future project, don't forget to follow my account if you want to be updated :)

Vectors and Laser Machine Program

Back to my office, I now have to vectorize the two logos and prepare the location of each logo on the mug. I've noticed that @exyle was often showing the mug on the thumbnail of his posts so I want to engrave the @blockbothers logo as big as possible.

I'm now sending those photos to @exyle for final confirmation

• if you decide to do this kind of custom accessories on Steem you have to make sure that the customer approve every step.

I'm shipping those mugs to the Netherland and I don't want anyone to have a bad feeling at the end.

Next step will be testing the logos on flat surfaces to make sure the setup is correct and start the engraving.

Thanks a lot for reading,

SkarNoze

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Follow my Laser Engraving Journey:
➡ https://steemit.com/@skarnoze
➡ https://www.facebook.com/SkarNoze/
➡ https://www.skarnoze.com

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Follow this Project:
➡ Laser Engraving a Custom Stainless Steel Mug for @Exyle and @blockbrothers - Part 1 - All About Opportunities

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My Previous Project:
➡ Skarnoze Collab with French Artist Noref - George Brassens - Part 1 - The Engraving
➡ Skarnoze Collab with French Artist Noref - George Brassens - Part 2 - Timelapse

➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 1 - The design
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 2 - Create Vectors on Illustrator
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 3 - Programming the Laser
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 4 - Let's make a sample
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 5 - Start the Laser Engraving
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 6 - Stunning Result !!!
➡ Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Part 7 - Timelapse Video of the Laser Engraving