On this episode of The Atlanta Maker we engrave a Yeti style tumbler with a Glowforge.
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Yeti style tumblers are very popular right now, so it’s inevitable that you’ll want to make one with your Glowforge.
Unfortunately, a true Yeti tumbler will not fit within the limits of the Glowforge bed as the thickest item you can engrave is 2”.
Luckily there is an alternative style tumbler that you can engrave in a Glowforge! These are Polar Camel brand 20oz Silicone sleeve tumblers. The silicone sleeve can be removed and flattened so it can be engraved in any laser system.
They come in seven different colors with four of them engraving to a white color, and three of them engraving to black.
I personally think the colors that engrave to white are a little more user friendly, but we will touch on that a bit later.
These tumblers can be purchased from several different vendors including the Tried and Tested Blanks group on Facebook and the usual wholesale companies if you have a resellers certificate.
You’ll need to use your glowforge to make one of the Tumbler Jigs. You can find the file for the jig in the Glowforge User Group facebook group in the files section or if you purchased your tumblers from the Tried and Tested group, they can provide you the jig file.
A link to all of the facebook groups are in the video description below.
Once you have the jig made, you’ll need to remove the silicone sleeve from the tumbler. The easiest way I’ve found to do that is to slide it down the narrower side of the cup.
You will then slide the sleeve over the jig until it’s nice and even. Pay attention to the top and bottom edges as you want these to be as even as possible to avoid distortions of your engraving.
Secure it with a couple honeycomb tray pins when setting it into your glowforge.
As with any glowforge project, the key to more accurate image placement is to do a set focus on the sleeve before placing your artwork.
The settings for these silicone sleeves are 600 speed, 55 power, and 340 LPI. I’ve also used 450 LPI, but I didn’t notice much difference in quality, so save engraving time and use 340 LPI.
Let’s send the file to the Glowforge and get the engrave started.
Don’t forget to flip the jig over and engrave the other side too!
The results will look ugly while engraving, but don’t worry it’s normal.
After removing the sleeve from the jig you will use a toothbrush and some soap or LA Awesome to scrub the engraving to get it clean.
This is where I prefer the ones that engrave to white vs the ones that engrave to black, as they clean up much easier.
The black engravings required a bit more scrubbing to get clean. If after you clean them and they dry and appear to be a bit gray, this means you need to scrub it more.
After it’s all clean and dry you can slide it back onto the tumbler, and you have a finished product ready to sell!
We’ve made a bunch of these for friends’ birthdays and quite often will use the tracing feature to add our signatures to them for an even more personalized touch.
Well, that’s it for today! If you’ve made it this far, can I ask you to go one step further and hit the like button and drop us a comment? It helps us out considerably with getting our content show to others!
See Ya Next Time!
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