Travel Washers

Several years ago my daughter started buying me these small washers with the country codes and years my wife and I visited them. The washers went on a split ring that had a leather strap connected to a trigger clip. Clip it to your backpack or bag.
Of course I said I could do that. Hard to source the nice small shiny fender washers but I found some a little larger that actually turned out better. The larger washer allowed me to put on more information. I found some Cermark for a good price. It goes a long way on 5/8 inch washers.
I made a set for my wife. I’ve already had requests to use them for other milestones (places lived, projects completed). Here are some pictures showing country and year on one side and major cities on the other. Cut the strap on the Glowforge as well.
Snap marks are a must on this project.

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There was another owner that did anodized scales for chain maille, and yes, Snapmarks were made for this!
Nice work.

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Very cool idea! Your leather strap came out great as well.

Actually, Snapmarks wouldn’t be required as long as you made a fresh jig for each engraving session, like out of cardboard or something. That’s what I do all the time even though I have Snapmarks, just out of sheer laziness. :laughing:

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I like the cardboard jig idea. In the past when I’ve needed to flip objects or do reputative engraving, where movement of fractions of an inch are not important, I’ve taped down a jig.

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Would you look at that. I never heard of such a thing but it’s a pretty neat idea. I think I could fill a few of those after doing 20 years in the navy lol.

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I could imagine.

I made something very similar for my daughter. She travels internationally frequently for her sport so the leather fob has her sport logo and then the washers with the locations. Looking for a photo.

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This is such a cute idea. My wife and I were lucky enough to go to Europe before the pandemic hit. I might just have to copy this idea!

I had to learn a couple things:

  1. How to etch on metal by looking researching the GF community. The Cermark spray was expensive ($65) at JPPLUS.com. Lots cheaper than $100+ on Amazon.
  2. I couldn’t find the 1/2" OD fender washers like the ones my daughter bought. Fender washers have smaller center holes so they have more area to etch on. Found some 5/8" OD at BoltDepot.com (Fender washers, Stainless steel 18-8, #6 x 5/8").
  3. I bought 1 1/4" split rings from Tandy Leather and they got sprung when trying to slide on the washers. Ended up with cheaper ones from Hobby Lobby. Book rings would work too.
  4. Bought a 1" trigger snap from Tandy that is really too heavy. Still looking for a lighter one.
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I’ve never used Cermark, but I’ve had good results from using Dry Moly Lube spray, at least on stainless that is

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I will need to try that. It looks to be a whole lot cheaper. Thanks for that suggestion.

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I will say, just looking at results on larger things, Cermark probably IS a bit better, but for smaller things the DML seems to work just fine. I’ve used it on flasks and bottle openers without issue

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