With the continuous improvement of social consumption level, people's demand for personalized consumption is also rising, and it is especially obvious in jewelry. Now the jewelry industry is divided into two processing methods, one is the traditional laser engraving, the other is hand-carved. So what is the difference between the two of them? What are their respective advantages and disadvantages? Today's article will take you to explore hand engraving as well as laser engraving it.
What is the difference between hand engraving and laser engraving?
To say that the biggest difference between the two ways, that is, the laser engraving can be engraved pattern is limited, most of them can only carve out a flat pattern. And hand-carved is different, hand-carved involved in the scope of more extensive than laser engraving, in addition to the above mentioned plane engraving, hand-carved is best at three-dimensional pattern of the carving. As far as the current technology is concerned, this kind of relief carving can only be accomplished by hand engraving.
What is laser engraving?
Laser engraving is the use of computers to manipulate the intensity of strong light and the distance and orientation they move. Here the strong laser light is not directed at the metal, but has to be projected through many mirrors and finally focused into a stronger laser light before it is directed at the engraved material.
If you are engraving on a ball or ring, you will need to place these specially shaped objects on a special fixture before engraving.
What are the advantages of laser engraving?
- One of the major advantages of using laser engraving is the possibility of highly personalized jewelry. Since the precision of laser engraving is very high, it is possible to engrave details that cannot be achieved by hand engraving.
- Compared to hand engraving, laser engraving takes less time and still has a shorter payback time.
- The range of engraving materials involved in laser engraving is still relatively wide, for example, hand engraving rarely engraves materials such as tungsten and cobalt.
- Laser engraving has a high degree of physical finish to the engraving. It can be done almost to the extent that the physical object and the design created on the computer are exactly the same. So many times, laser engraving is used to add some logos in jewelry.
What are the disadvantages of laser engraving?
- While laser engraving has several of these advantages, it is able to achieve high volume engraving production. And the style of the products produced are all the same. But there are still some people who still prefer the special charm of hand-engraved products.
- Laser engraving is not suitable for engraving something whose appearance is irregularly shaped, especially some jewelry.
- During the process of laser engraving, certain metals may change in color due to the strong laser light. The change in color is still quite important for something like jewelry.
- The technology of laser engraving has not been popularized for long, so it still consumes quite a lot of energy. So it is not so friendly for the environment.
What is hand carving?
The tradition of hand engraved jewelry has been around for centuries. To put it simply, hand engraving is when a professional engraver uses a variety of different engraving tools to carve patterns, text, etc. into jewelry.
What are the advantages of hand engraving?
- Each hand-engraved piece of jewelry is unique. The finished jewelry will be engraved with the jewelry engraver's own unique style. So many times customers choose their own favorite engraver.
- Hand engraving, compared to laser engraving, is not a mass production, but each piece will show the emotion that the engraver puts into the work.
What are the disadvantages of hand carving?
- Technical training for hand carving takes more time. To train a good carving master, the cost of time and money spent during this period is very high.
- Hand-engraved patterns are generally more challenging compared to laser engraving. Because after all, laser engraving is only suitable for engraving some simple patterns or letters, numbers and so on. Then the burden of carving complex patterns can only fall on the hand engraving.
- The quality of the hand-carving is largely positively correlated with the skill of the carver.
- Hand engraving is not suitable for hard metals such as tungsten, or cobalt.
What is the best way to carve?
If you're choosing between laser engraving and traditional hand engraving as a method of engraving, it's a good idea to consider what the complexity of what you're engraving is like. Laser engraving is better suited for engraving relatively detailed geometric patterns, such as hearts, arrows, and other types of patterns. Hand engraving is better suited for more complex, three-dimensional patterns. In addition, if you need to engrave on more complicated jewelry, it is better to choose hand engraving. You may also want to consider how long you can wait and what your budget is, as well as the type of metal you want to engrave.
So to summarize, hand engraving and laser engraving actually have their own strengths, and there is no which way is necessarily the best. So you need to follow your own actual needs to choose your own engraving method.
