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How To Find The Best Engraving Service

Written by Annabelle
August 21, 2019

You’re thinking about getting something engraved, and you’re looking up engraving services online. Questions like; “Where can I get my ring engraved?” “How much do engravings cost?” or “How long does it take to get something engraved” might be floating around in your head. To answer those questions, read on to learn more about finding the best engraving service for you.

What's an Engraving Service?

Typically, engraving is provided by companies that specialize in engraving mass batches of items, such as awards, plaques, and other items. In the jewelry sphere, engraving can be provided (with varying results) by local jewelers, small boutiques, and large chain jewelry brands. 

What’s important to understand is that most of these engraving services have one thing in common- they primarily engrave on their own products. Companies such as Things Remembered, for instance, offer personalization on their retail products. That’s fine if you happen to be purchasing from their stores, but what if you already have a piece that you want to engrave? You’ll need to find an engraving service provider, one like Quick Jewelry Repairs where they’ll engrave anything you bring in as long as it’s doable.

Also, when you’re looking for a good engraving service, you want to make sure that the provider has a lot of options to maximize your customization and allows you to engrave your own item. After all, it’s clearly a sentimental piece that you’re looking to engrave, and you don’t want to feel limited by the engraver’s set options. We’ve come up with 5 essentials an engraving service should have below.

5 Things to Look for in an Engraving Service

  1. Comprehensive item types: A standard engraving service should engrave the typical jewelry pieces, such as:

    • Pendants/Charms
    • Bracelets
    • Rings
    • Watches:
      The skill for engraving these items is dependent on the jeweler's ability to guide the engraving machine in tight, confined areas, or to the curve of a ring's interior. Most engraving services will be able to do a passable job for these pieces, but many places turn down items that are not jewelry due to their limited experience. An expert engraver, however, will be able to engrave on a vast number of items. From bowling balls to flasks, the item and the area of engraving will not be a problem for this type of engraving service. It's important to note that the engraver should allow you to choose the area of engraving. Many engravers assume, for instance, that the engraving should always be in a certain area. For instance, rings are normally engraved on the inside, not the outside. However, a good engraving service will allow you to select the area of work when placing your order.

      engraving-service-stylus

      This stylus was a tricky item to engrave, but we did it nice and straight.

  2. Wide Selection of Engraving Base Materials: Most jewelers can only engrave on typical jewelry metals such as: 
    • Silver
    • Gold
    • Platinum
      More advanced engraving services provide engraving for materials such as:
    • Stainless steel
    • Tungsten
    • ceramic carbide
    • Titanium
    • Cobalt
      It can be quite difficult to engrave on tough metals like tungsten, but if the engraver is using a laser engraving machine the laser will be able to pierce the surface.
      For plated items, it can be a toss up. Plated jewelry is easily engraved, but anything that is a strange base (such as resin) plated with metal may react adversely to the engraving process.

      engraving-service-plated-ring

      This ring is gold-plated tungsten- note how the base metal shows through at the area of engraving.

  3. Customizable fonts: While you can stick to the standard options that are available at any engraver's, such as block and script font, try to find someone who can do custom fonts! A good engraving service will have the ability to do special styles as long as they're provided with the necessary sample. The sample is then entered into the laser engraving machine, and guided to engrave on the item at the desired area. For more complex jobs, you’ll need an engraver who offers a plethora of options. Our engraving service, for instance, offers two of the most popular font options such as block and script. We can also do monograms, and engrave custom fonts such as Old English and Art Deco.
    Block fonts – Block fonts are clean and easy to read. They also make a bold statement, especially for long inscriptions and names.

    Script fonts – Our most popular font type for engagement rings! Script is beautiful for expressing sentimental messages.

    Monograms – Usually engraved on signet rings, this antique-inspired method of engraving imparts a sophisticated and vintage aesthetic. Use it to create an instant family heirloom on a blank ring or pendant!

    Custom fonts: This is dependent on what you can find and submit to us! As an example, we've done a cool Star Wars custom font for one of our customer's rings.

    star wars ring engraving

    A custom Star Wars font ring we did for one of our customers

  4. Complex image engraving capabilities: This is a rare thing for most engravers to do. Images can be very difficult to engrave, depending on the design, and as a result many jewelers turn such requests down. In actuality, it's no different from the customizable font- the engraver simply needs a good sample. Ideally, the sample should be a black image on a white background for best results, as the engraving machine cannot register color. Once the image has been entered, the engraving process continues as usual.
    engraving-service

    This logo was customized by our client. The base metal is tungsten.

  5. Original engraving removal: While many engraving services provide engraving as their only service, this can be quite inconvenient, especially if you have an existing engraving on the interior that you'd like to remove before re-engraving. At Quick Jewelry Repairs, we laser off the original engraving to remove it, and then give it a light polish to smooth out the surface without thinning down the metal. It should be noted that this is not possible with metals such as tungsten, ceramic carbide, cobalt, or titanium. This is because these metals are extremely tough and do not react to a laser machine.
    engraving-service-removal

    This white gold ring had the interior engraving removed, polished, and rhodium plated.

Online Engraving Services

Now that you're a little more aware of what you should be looking for, here's the hard part- how do you find a good engraving service without running around and asking?

Fortunately, there's a new and convenient way of getting your items engraved without having to trot around town looking for someone. Quick Jewelry Repairs, for instance, allows customers to submit their order forms online. Then it's just a quick trip to FedEx to ship off the item they want to engrave to QJR's facility, and they can sit at home for the return package. We've engraved both jewelry and non-jewelry items, in tough metals such as tungsten and aluminum, and we provide customizable fonts and images. That being said, get started with your own personalized engraving today by filling out the form below!

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Michele Van Nest

Please reply

Dan Benjamin

How can I get a price and what is necessary to do to have my own stainless steel signet ring engraved? On here for some reason all I see is: Oops! We could not locate your form.\
I haven’t filled out a form and not sure what the next step is>?

Catherine

Hi There, we have reached out via email with further details!