Engraving a Zippo Lighter

Hope this is the right place for this post. I have an X-Carve and I would like to do engraving on Zippo Lighters. Not sure what type of endmill to use. any info or experience you can offer would be much appreciated.

@PaulWheeler

That’s an awesome application. Just click the magnifying glass icon on the top right and enter “engraving” and you’ll fine plenty of reading material on all aspects of engraving, whether it’s laser options, different bit/pen options, types of fonts, etc. Good luck and don’t forget to post your Project!

Chris

Couple weeks back I was commissioned to engrave 46 of them with a bike club logo.

I used a 60 degree engraving bit and made a jig to held 5 at a time.

I made the fixture in Fusion 360 and exported that DXF into aspire so I can drop in the vector of the logo onto the existing DXF. Then I used a touch probe to ‘touch off’ the left edge of the jig so everything was repeatable.

7 Likes

@ymilord

Very cool! Did your jig allow you to do double-sided engraving? It looks like that easily could’ve been part of the strategy.

Yeah, That op was duplexed. Logo in the front and the clubs moto on the back with the Est. year.

@ymilord Very nice!
I’m fairly new to this and have been working with wood mostly. Can you give me a few pointers on the correct bit to get what depth to use, speeds. Any guidance would be great. With wood I have been able test using scrap. but with this project i’d like to start out with a little better understanding before I create scrap or break bits.

In the meantime I’m going to follow the link from MidnightMaker.

Thanks,
Paul

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the info. I’ll check it out.

Paul

You could also do the engraving with a diamond drag bit. Spindle stays off. Tip is spring loaded. Will etch practically anything from glass to Zippos