My design was selected to create a new advertising award trophies for the Advertising Federation. Most awards are old fashioned wood and brass or even worse, engraved lucite. This award is given for innovation and creativity, so I thought they should be awesomely substantial and modern. The backer is 1" thick aluminum, the face plates are black anodized .5" thick aluminum that was laser cut. The face plates are attached to the backers via M6 socket head bolts. The holes were drilled and tapped by my metal supplier (for a reasonable fee). All I had to do was engrave the anodized aluminum with logos, winner names, etc.
I am posting this, because the effect of engraving through an anodizing layer is pretty cool and is easily accomplished on the x-carve with cheap engraving bits. DOC was. .005. I used one faceplate as a jig and bolted faceplates for engraving on top. That way, you can set X and Y once and engrave all of the faceplates. I re-zeroed Z at each engraving location on each award for consistent engraving depth. It only took a day to engrave all the trophies.
The finalists all received a square award. The Best In Show (tell rectanglular award) is a “traveling trophy” and I cut and engraved the first winner’s aluminum plaque tag. Then, filled the engraving with black resin.
