Metal etching

I have a friend that would like to etch a design into his 9 MM Glock. Is that possible with Glowforge?

You can mark on metals other than anodized aluminum, you can’t actually etch them. (Thought Glocks were plastic though?)

In any case, there have been several folks who have tried it on gun handles, with varying results. Here’s one…just read through the thread, there are probably others…

I’ll shift this into the Beyond the Manual section where the discussions are on non-PG materials. :slightly_smiling_face:

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The body and handles are plastic, but the barrel and firing mechanism are metal. The have to be, due to the explody things that go through them. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the answer! I’m not sure where or how he wants it done. He is the local police chief and would like the thin blue line symbol etched on his gun. I’d really like to do that if possible. I appreciate you taking the time out to give me some advice!

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If he’s wanting the barrel marked, (thanks for the explanation @dcarolan ), you’ll need to use something like Cermark. There are a few examples of that on the forum too I think - you can just search for it and they should pop up.

By the way, you can also use Mustard to mark stainless steel…we had a heck of a fun time with that one…

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Sure you are not being set up?
Read this from the ATF.

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If he doesn’t do it as “a business” should be ok…but then again those grey areas can always trip you up…

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I made changes to my S&W M&P shield and it looked amazing but it was just the removal of the painted layer. It is a big grey area but it is not affected the performance is the way I see it. Its not like having the punisher on it will make it deadlier lol I have had a bunch of friends and family request to get their guns lasered or to join the gun show next time it rolls around but I do not feel comfortable doing it for others. I did it to mine as a test and it was nice but I’ll leave it at that. :slight_smile:

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I think the difficulty you’re going to run into is trying to do that in blue. Cermark is the laser marking stuff you need, but it marks in jet black. The blue they make isn’t at all that nice deep blue in the thin blue line symbol you’re referring to, and their blue is specifically for glass.

One thing I thought of you might try is to get someone with a CNC machine to carve a space for that symbol into each grip, either in the middle or down toward the bottom, and use the GF to make an acrylic inlay of bright blue to embed there. If something goes wrong, all it costs to fix is the price of a new grip. I wouldn’t try anything like that on the frame or lower receiver, because that’s where the serial number is. Obliterating those definitely bad juju.

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glocks don’t have separate grips; the grip is integral to the lower which in the part with the serial number

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No, I’ve known him a long time, its not a set up.

He’s almost certainly talking about working the slide, which holds the barrel and firing mechanism.

I want to try myself, but it’s low down on the list…

I don’t have a glock slide in my broken parts bin but I did a blued 1911 slide before. Very subtle but I loved the look.