Why not learn to hand engrave? Might be cheaper... maybe... Tiffany's still does it, not sure if anyone else does... (Aside from REALLY big dollar gun guys...)
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor
Alot of you are thinking about this from the wrong end - retail.
If you plan on doing bunches of these things, go find a laser engraver shop(and I don't mean a storefront - I'm talking a manufacturiing business), and get a price quote.
Keep in mind, most won't talk to you unless it involves several hundred dollars.
like others have mentioned, there is also more than one way to skin a cat - acid etching, milling(Sieg now makes a mini CNC mill for 3500 bucks), etc..
HTRN
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat
Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
Actually, from a hygienic point of view, swim in copper or alloys with significant copper content. Germs are killed by exposure to it.
And don't even get me started on the paranoia over mercury. We have a mercury filled tube in the lab (I think it was a switch of some sort), anyway, it had maybe 2 tablespoons of mercury in it. One of the students absolutely freaked out when she saw it; I guess she thought it was highly radioactive or something.
I am not sure about silver, but either way, copper and your typical copper based alloys tend to be way cheaper. Also, most people can't tell brass from gold or silver from stainless, so if you want to impress the ladies with a giant wealth that you do not have, brass can pass for gold.
The best luck I've had is in looking up photo resistance or whatever it's called, but the only material I see it working on is copper. Sad times! Any ideas of how photo resistance works on aluminum or sheet metal or whatever an ejector port cover is made of?
And may I say, from a moral point of view, I think there can be no justification for shoving snack cakes up your action.
--Weetabix
It's called photoresist. I am sure for enough money you can find one what will work on whatever you want. By enough money, though, we might be talking in the millions of dollars range.
An easier way to do what you want, though, is to make a stencil for whatever you want, and then just paint over it or whatnot. It's not engraving, but it's cheap.
