Laser Engraving Business Cards
When you run a woodworking business, even your business card should say something about what you do. Paper cards end up in a junk drawer. A wooden business card? That gets kept, passed around, talked about and maybe if I am lucky put in a place people will look at it again. Here's how I make mine from scratch using my Ortur laser engraver I bought used locally.
Ortur laser engraver beginning first test burn of Steel Toed Newt logo on Basswood
It Starts With a Test Burn
Nothing in my shop goes straight to production. After I make a design, the first step is to complete a test burn to get the power, speed, and focus dialed in. Too much power and you char through the material. Too little and the engraving is faint or spotty. Every species of wood reacts differently. On these cards I learned some interesting quirks while engraving the basswood I was using. This step can't be skipped no matter how many times you've done it before or the results will look rushed.
Ortur laser engraving multiple Steel Toed Newt logo variations for testing
Full sheet of Steel Toed Newt circular logos being laser engraved on wood
Iterating the Logo Layout
This is the part most people never see. What looks like a simple logo on a card actually takes multiple rounds of adjustment. Tweaking the size of the newt graphic, the font and font weight, the spacing and most importantly making sure everything is legible at business card scale. Each additional piece can make things exponentially more difficult and sometimes the backend adjustment in the burning software itself in the most difficult. Each sheet is a full run through the laser, and rushing this stage means less nice products and more reprinting everything later.
Laser engraving Steel Toed Newt business cards showing logo name website and email
Two sheets of wooden business cards in batch production on Ortur laser
Laying Out the Full Card
On these ones, once the logo is locked in, I lay out the complete design: the Steel Toed Newt logo with the newt logo, my name, "Woodworking and Custom Furniture," the website, and email. I think there is lots to change about these still, and more iterations will follow as I refine the designs and the logo that I find represents me and the business the most. The laser traces each card individually across the sheet. Every small part of engraving is a layer on the machine the laser traces each layer card by card then moves to the next one. A full page takes about 3 hours with the Ortur. There's no shortcuts around the timelines, but with a bigger laser this time would be significantly reduced. I might look at something cool and exciting in the future.
Finished sheet of laser-engraved wooden business cards
Cut, Separate, Stack
After engraving, each card gets separated from the sheet. The low power laser actually does a pretty good job of cutting these out with a few exceptions, but if needed I lightly cut them out with an exact-o knife. The result is a card with actual texture that you can feel the logo and lettering with your fingers.
Close-up of Steel Toed Newt laser-engraved wooden business cards
Stacks of finished wooden business cards on workbench
The Finished Product
Every card is slightly different because every piece of wood has its own grain. In a woodworkers world that's the point, and in my world that’s how I try to make my furniture different. When someone takes one of these, they're holding a piece of actual woodworking, not a mass-produced rectangle from a print shop. It's something I hope people don't throw away.
From first test burn to finished stack, this process takes several hours per session. Each sheet takes a few hours to burn after all the design iterations and material prep have been made. In my mind that's what separates handmade from manufactured. Every Steel Toed Newt product down to the business card gets the same care as the picture frames and custom furniture that come out of this shop.
Sam
