Well that's a well kept secret that we wouldn't tell anyone.
Except maybe you...
The Blank Coins
The coins start as a brass rod that gets machined down to our specifications by a UK machining firm.
They ship us the blank coins, straight to the workshop in bulk. Ready for the next step.
The Design
From there we take your design, import it into Photoshop and tweak it to better fit the laser software.
This usually means increasing contrast, inverting colours, and occasionally redrawing certain areas of the logo to ensure the correct parts are engraved.
From there, your logo goes to our laser PC and gets imported into the software.
Engraving
We insert the blank coin into our fiber laser, using a custom made jig, to ensure the coin ends up in exactly the right place every time.
Then all it takes is the press of a 'start' button and the laser does its thing.
Roughly 10-25 minutes later (depending on the logo design), we have an engraved coin.
Cleaning
Now at this point the coins genuinely look awful. The engraving process leaves burnt edges that need carefully removing.
We do this with a Dremel and an abrasive wheel to focus on the deepest parts of the coin.
Once complete, we take the coin to the belt sander and gently remove any imperfections off the top face of the coin.
We then increase the grit to give the coins a satin finish. If you chose a satin coin, this is where your coin gets packaged up.
Polishing
But if you chose a gloss finish, then we go even further. Increasing the grit of the belt sander again followed up by taking your coin to our polishing wheel to really bring out that shine.
The coins immediately get placed into a pot of acetone where the polishing compound softens.
We then take the coins out of the acetone and clean off any grease left from the polishing with a lint free cloth.
Packaging
It's at this stage where we take your coin, slot it into our custom laser-cut plywood packaging and box it up ready for dispatch.
And just like that, you've got yourself an emblem coin!
