LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

We do mostly etched glass w our laser and an artist friend suggested I approach local micro breweries about doing etched pub glasses they might want when they release a new beer. This weekend I saw that our town, Hickory, NC, is having 150th anniversary celebrations this year and a local microbrewery is definitely releasing anew beer. Now I want to approach him about using us for etching.

We've already played around with pub glasses and even came up with a custom pub glass for individuals to put their name on.

I priced pub glasses and found a couple sources. The cheapest is Dollar Tree, I can get them delivered to a local one and not pay shipping which puts the price to $1.00 each. If that source dries up a second option is through webstaurant.com and by the time I add in shipping for theirs it would be around 2.54 per glass.

I checked out discountmugs.com for custom glassware. They do imprinted or etched. Their etched prices decrease based on quantity so for 12 glasses it would be 9.71 per glass plus shipping and customers can design their own using their online options (kind of like the print your own business card sites I guess.) For 24 glasses it would be 7.54; 36 would be 5.86: 72, 4.91; 144, 4.77 and 288 would be 4.09. No idea how many they would want to order. I am guessing hundreds. Wondering if those prices are good for me to use. Then I would need to charge a set up fee $30? Then if we do the artwork / graphic it would be maybe $30. Thots? When I do an order like this, I know I should ask for a down payment. Half in advance? Advice?

They are probably acid etching the glasses [or possibly sand carving] and our process of doing glasses with a rotary [which I assume you are doing?] does not offer the time/labor savings that they may have. Pricing is one of the hardest things to get correct in this kind of businesses, I have found. Our processes are better suited to custom jobs in my opinion, on large quantities it really depends on how you value your time and resources and other factors like how soon they are needed. It may be very different if you have other work and can feed a new glass in everytime you are walking by or if they all have to be done in a few days.

Where to start?
This was the main reason I purchased my laser. I did 168 mason jar mugs and 168 pub glasses for my daughters weddings.
I posted on this very thing a couple years ago but all of our information in the forum was lost when we suffered a major crash. If my memory serves me right I offered the files to anyone interested and gave the item numbers to the products.
I use the Dollar Tree pub glass, mason jar glass, wine glass and beer mugs.
The mason jar mugs I laser 8 at a time and the pub glasses are lasered 9 at a time without the use of a rotary. You have to play a little to get a size that will work well to achieve good engraving on the rounded sides. Doing them as flat work saves a tremendous amount of time.
I made templates using 2 pieces of 1/4" plywood and a 1" Styrofoam sandwiched between them.
Since reading your post I have spent about 45 minutes trying to find the photos of the pub glass template and am not able to do so at the moment.
Here is a picture of the template I created for the mason jar and one of the 168 pub glass that was done 9 at a time.
I will look again later to see if I can find the pictures or maybe even the files used to create the template.
I'm not sure that I still have the files because I suffered a hard drive crash about a year and half ago and had to start from scratch on everything.
I may be able to measure my template if that will help as I spent hours creating this to get the glasses to sit level in the laser.
As far the price you are thinking about. I think it is too low across the board, especially if you are furnishing the glasses. Your time to order, pick them up and engrave them is worth more. You should at minimum, double the cost of your material and then figure your laser and other time from there.
I remove the stickers, wash them in the dishwasher and rebox at $7 each for 144 glasses. The price goes up with less quantity. If I were going to do them on a rotary the price would go up by $2 each no matter how many.
You need to figure the cost of your material, the cost of your setup/design and the cost of your time (laser included) and that is how much you require as a deposit. It that total is less than half of the full price it is okay. If they were to change their mind for some reason, you should not be left with any debt and a whole lot of glasses that are only good for target practice. Your profit is what you will get when the invoice is paid in full. If you do your part and they turn out well they will pay the rest because they are more invested at that point.
Also, as a general rule of thumb, I usually figure that 1 or 2 glasses in each case of 24 will be either defective or did not laser properly and will be trash.

This is what I found. Although the glasses do not actually sit level they have worked well for several hundred glasses. To make them level use a thicker Styrofoam and widen the top opening for the glass a little. This should let the top of the glass come down and make it more level. I used Styrofoam that was about 1 3/8" thick but around 1 3/4" would probably be better. I used what I had at the time to make this. The image created was 1 3/4" wide. Any wider will have to be played with on focus and power a little more or be put on a rotary.

Good input and thanks, Willy, for sharing your template photos. We've been doing these on a rotary. I did think about the time. Now I see how they could be done differently. That would most definitely make it a faster process and help drop the cost.

I think this might be a lot for us to bite off. I just started selling custom etched plates and flattened wine bottle cheeseboards but those are one at a time. We're also doing etched dog memorials. It's good profit but we are just at the beginning stages of doing this. I guess I have to decide if we really want to take on something of this magnitude. I also make and sell artwork and artisan gifts that don't involve the laser machine. So, this could be a lot to manage. I will definitely consider the pricing advice. I thought that sounded super cheap. Doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

Teena- I have been in the Sign industry for 25 years and before that restored older Corvettes for 20 years. When getting into an industry it is normal to think that as we are not experienced we need to price our work low in order to gain experience and business. There are many layers of pricing/performance in most businesses and in my experience pricing low is a race to the bottom. It may be hard at first to turn jobs down but in the long run it may very well be the correct thing to do. I have had a lot of experiences in my life and have come to believe that the same job can be done very cheaply but people will also pay more for quality work- not all people of course- but the people I want to do work for will. It has served me well... so far. Good pricing, Gene

Willy, I showed Jeff, my husband you templates. We both would like to know how you got the pub glasses to etch so well on a curved surface. What's the secret. He said he's going to get on here and look over these samples. We'll have to talk with you further about the pub glass template especially but this is brilliant.

I found one of the practice glasses I used when creating these several years ago. On a China Blue 60w, I used 65% power and speed of 400. If memory serves me correct I set the focal point at the center of the image because the glasses are not level. If you tweak the template with a thicker Styrofoam and a little less width on the bottom of the insert cut outs you could probably get them level. The images I created was 1 3/4" wide and lasered around the curves great. Keep in mind that I probably went through at least 6 or 8 glasses to get this figured out but doing 168 of them was worth the time to do it this way. Hope this helps.

Willy Ivy wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 On a China Blue 60w, I used 65% power and speed of 400. If memory serves me correct I set the focal point at the center of the image because the glasses are not level.

What focal length lens do you use for those?

I use a 2 inch.