In today's society, people are becoming more and more passionate about pursuing things that show off their personal qualities. Wearing jewelry is one of the practices that can express their uniqueness. So now a lot of jewelers want to fight for the pursuit of this market and launched a personalized engraving services.
Among the methods of engraving, two different engraving techniques stand out, one is hand engraving and the other is laser engraving. These two types of engraving have their own characteristics, but there is no doubt that they are two very popular engraving methods on the market today. Today's article will introduce you to the two different types of engraving and what their respective characteristics are, as well as how to choose a type of engraving that best suits your needs.
What is hand carving?
Hand engravingĀ as the name suggests is the use of manual engraving tools to carve special patterns or markings on the engraved material. Hand engraving is very demanding on the operator, as every step in between is done manually, step by step, by the engraver. In the past, the most common tool used recently was a chisel with a chisel to complete the carving, but nowadays, with the advancement of technology, very few people are still using such primitive carving tools. Nowadays, many carvers purchase pneumatic engraving machinesĀ as their engraving tools. Pneumatic engraving machine can not only help you to improve work efficiency, but also can let you feel the fun of hand carving.
What are the advantages of hand engraving?
- Hand carving, as the most traditional way of carving, has been around for thousands of years since the beginning of its existence. That's why many people love the special charm of hand carving.
- Each hand-carved piece is unrepeatable. As mentioned above, every step of a hand-carved piece is done manually by the carver. So even if the same carver uses the same carving tools to carve the same design, there will still be slight differences in the details.
- Hand-carved pieces can be given a different meaning. There is a slight difference between a hand carved piece and one that is mass produced by a carving machine. You can even participate in the carving process yourself if you want to.
- Hand engraving is capable of engraving very complex patterns. Although the engraving efficiency of laser engraving is very high, but the laser engraving can only engrave a flat pattern. Hand engraving is not only capable of engraving flat patterns, but also capable of engraving three-dimensional patterns such as reliefs.
What are the disadvantages of hand carving?
- It takes a long time to really learn the art of hand carving, at least three to five years. That's why there are so few hand carvers nowadays, because very few people are able to keep going.
- The quality of hand-carved works is closely related to the skill of the carver. Handmade carving can not be like machine carving, no matter how many pieces of carving, the final presentation of the carving effect is the same.
- Hand engraving is not suitable for engraving particularly hard textured metals. Hand engraving is only suitable for soft metals like gold and silver. Metals such as tungsten and cobalt may need to be handed over to specialized engraving machines.
What is laser engraving?
Laser engraving refers to the use of a strong laser to irradiate the engraved material, causing the engraved material to vaporize in an instant, and ultimately forming the engraved pattern. The process of laser engraving requires computer software to adjust the intensity of the laser light and the width of the laser beam. In fact, the laser beam does not directly irradiate the engraving material, but with the help of mirrors, complete a number of projections before finally irradiating the engraving material.
If the shape of the material to be engraved is spherical, you will need to use a specialized part to hold the engraved material in place. For example, if you want to carve a ring, you need to fix the ring on a rotating part. While engraving, the ring will follow the rotating part to rotate and finalize the engraving.
Advantages of laser engraving
- Laser engraving can engrave patterns with a high degree of accuracy, and as long as the design can be created on a computer, the laser engraving machine can reproduce the pattern exactly. Moreover, the engravings made with laser engraving are very clean and neat, without extra metal debris.
- Compared with manual engraving, the efficiency of laser engraving is considered to be very high. The running cycle of laser engraving is very short, so it can realize the mass production of products.
- Laser engraving can engrave a wider range of materials. As mentioned above, hand engraving is more suitable for engraving some soft metal. But if you want to engrave on tungsten, stainless steel and other materials, laser engraving is not a problem.
- The most outstanding advantage of laser engraving is that it can realize the mass production of identical products. Therefore, laser engraving is very suitable for engraving logos or trademarks this kind of pattern.
Disadvantages of laser engraving
- Laser engraving is not suitable for engraving materials with irregular shapes. If you really want to use it for engraving, the final result may not be so ideal.
- If the metal that you are going to engrave is an alloy, there may be such a thing as discoloration after laser engraving. This is due to the fact that during the laser engraving process, the metal will be kept in a high temperature environment, which may cause the color of the metal to change.
- In the process of laser engraving, it may need to consume a lot of energy. So the capital cost that needs to be invested is still relatively high.
How to choose the right engraving method for you?
Hand engraving and laser engraving each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and when you choose you may need to take into account what kind of pattern you want to engrave, your time budget, and how your money budget is. So, there is no such thing as laser engraving is necessarily better than hand engraving.
