Coasters and Canvas

[ryan.niemer]

So I had a local small business approach me to see if I could do their logo on some slate coasters. I of course said yes, and since they already had the files, it was a breeze to get this done. They actually want more, but I had to wait on supplies to arrive and get prepped before I could do them.

I also did a bit of an experiment with a super cheap hardboard canvas. This is going to be a father’s day gift for my stepfather. He’s huge into fishing so I found a, sadly small file size, picture of an old fishing reel patent from the early 1900s. I think it came out really dang nice actually. Wish it was a bit darker, so if anyone knows anything I can put on it now that it’s already been engraved, let me know. I was thinking some spray on clear coat or spray lacquer. Maybe even cover it with some mod podge to see if it will just make it a tad darker. If not, I may consider just engraving it again. At any rate, let me know what you all think!

[geek2nurse]

Did you ever do the invisible writing thing with lemon juice, as a kid? You write your message, let it dry, and then heat it up, and the paper turns brown where the lemon juice was. I’m kinda wondering if you lightly daubed lemon juice over the engraving, and wiped it off quickly, if it would soak into the engraved parts more than the non-engraved parts, and then darken with a hot air blast.

Or it might totally destroy it.

[ryan.niemer]

Hey, it’s worth a shot! If it doesn’t work, like I said, I’m not out much. I got the canvas at Dollar Tree!

[ptodd]

Like the fishing reel … Hope you can get it darker without re-doing. Will probably need to re-do it and then spray with something before you remove the masking.

[Goobdoob]

Not quite sure how “small” of a file you found, but attached is the full photo from the actual patent. I use them quite often and import them into Illustrator and convert them to line art vectors if I want something larger than the original file.

[ryan.niemer]

Wow! That’s much nicer than what I used. Where do you find your patent images if you don’t mind?

[Goobdoob]

If you know the patent numbers or the inventor/designer/actual holding company, you can use Google’s Patent search engine. Most of what I have done I’ve known who applied for the patent by name or had the actual patent number.

For yours I cheated and used the patent number (seen in the top center 847,890) and just searched it. Many times you’ll have to sort through pages of jibberish before you find the image you’re looking for.

Also keep in mind that a lot of OLD patents are hand drawn images, and photocopied over and over again, so there will be plenty of noise some images if you plan on just slapping it straight into a file. I always try to clean them up.

Patents are also gray area in my mind kind of like well known artwork, logos, etc. I would never sell what I do with them but there are plenty of people out there that would. So use this at your own risk if you plan to do anything beyond personal.

[ryan.niemer]

I’m a big fan of NOT selling anything copyrighted, but I know of lot of people don’t care… Anything like this is most likely either a proof of concept for display or for a gift But thank you very much on the tips for finding the images, that’s awesome

[djfb]

Per the USPTO website, “ Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s) , the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions . The inventors’ right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time is not compromised by the publication of the description of the invention. In other words, the fact that a patent’s description may have been published without copyright restrictions does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent.”