How to Engrave a Brick
Most companies that engrave bricks use sophisticated and expensive computer-driven laser engraving tools. Brick engraving, though, can be done at home. Anyone with a good engraving tool and a computer and printer can learn quickly how to engrave bricks at little cost.
Things You Will Need
- Computer
- Printer
- Word processor or design program like Photoshop
- Carbon paper
- Pencil
- Protective eyewear
- Engraving tool with a diamond wheel point tip
Warning
Make sure to wear protective eyewear. Brick chips easily, and minute pieces can fly off while you are engraving.
Engraving a Brick
-
Size the image or text you want to engrave to the size of the brick. Use your word processor or design program for this. Most brick is 4 inches tall by 8 inches wide, so you want to size whatever is to be engraved to fit within 3 inches by 7 inches; this will give you at least a 1/2-inch margin all the way around the brick. If you are engraving lettering, larger-sized letters are much easier to engrave (and see) than small letters, and the same is true of images.
-
Print the design to be engraved once it has been properly sized. Place a piece of carbon paper behind the printout (ink side down).
-
Place the image printout and carbon paper on the face of the brick you want to engrave. Then, take your pencil and run it over the outline of the design.
-
Remove the image print out and carbon paper. If you placed them correctly on the brick, you should now have outlines of the image transferred to the brick.
-
Put on your protective eyewear.
-
Turn on the engraving tool and start to carve out the design from the brick using the image outlines as your guide. Brick is hard material, so you may have to periodically exchange tips.
The Drip Cap
- Most companies that engrave bricks use sophisticated and expensive computer-driven laser engraving tools.
- If you are engraving lettering, larger-sized letters are much easier to engrave (and see) than small letters, and the same is true of images.
- Place a piece of carbon paper behind the printout (ink side down).
- Place the image printout and carbon paper on the face of the brick you want to engrave.
Writer Bio
Micah Rubenstein has been writing professionally since 1985. He was the editor of the online publication GrailWorld Magazine, the host and producer of the weekly "Message In Music" radio series and a former professor at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He teaches at Columbus State Community College and Granite State College in New Hampshire. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in music from Brown University.
More Articles
