tiny don't be alarmed if you see me going through your trash.

Something like this:

 

I know NJGunForums.com is a lot of letters spelled out and you need some width, but can we just shrink the font and ditch the tacti-cool compensator and go with a standard 1911 profile? The current gun is a little too Mall Ninja-ish for me.

Here's a quick and dirty edit. Took out the compensator, smoothed out the hammer, tried to do a traditional 1911 trigger and shrank the text a bit.

 

Like this??

I thought that front site was a little off.

 

That looks good to me. Would the skeletonized trigger come out in an engraving that small? I like it better than the Para LDA trigger from earlier designs. Maybe the regular GI solid trigger would come out best.

 

Take my suggestions with a shaker of salt though. As Archie Bunker might say, "I'm artistically declined."

I thought that front site was a little off.

 

That looks good to me. Would the skeletonized trigger come out in an engraving that small? I like it better than the Para LDA trigger from earlier designs. Maybe the regular GI solid trigger would come out best.

 

Take my suggestions with a shaker of salt though. As Archie Bunker might say, "I'm artistically declined."

Dunno. Maks would have to forward the design to the engravers for their opinion before any final decision is made.

wouldnt that trigger have to be color inverted. =P

wouldnt that trigger have to be color inverted. =P

In a perfect world, yeah. But then the trigger would blend in completely. This way, it'll look like a black trigger on a silver frame. Not perfect, but at least it'll separate from the rest of the art.

sent it off to spikes. Will see what they say.

I'd be interested, though I'd prefer to make my final decision based on whatever the final design might be.

I'd be interested, though I'd prefer to make my final decision based on whatever the final design might be.

 

me too!

If you'd like me to laser that design, I can show you what it'd look like.

Just for a giggle, I lasered the design on some Black anodized plates.

 

Yag laser. It'd look different on steel.

 

Also, I have no idea how big the spot size is of their laser. They could have a very tiny spot. The spot size on my lasers is about 2.5 mils.

 

The first is 1" x 2"

 

The next picture is just the whole plate. I blew it up by 50% and you see jaggies. I'd suggest laying this out in illustrator or Coreldraw so the design is scalable.

 

The original gun outline is a bitmap, as is the map, and tracing them is outside of my skillset, so the best I'll be able to do is scale it the actual required size. If anyone is an Illustrator guru, I'll happily send the original psd file.

 

K

 

ETA

Mark, that looks nice. If I was a rifle guy, I'd go for it.

 

The original is at 300 ppi. I downrezed it to 72 for the attachment.

The original gun outline is a bitmap, as is the map, and tracing them is outside of my skillset, so the best I'll be able to do is scale it the actual required size. If anyone is an Illustrator guru, I'll happily send the original psd file.

 

K

 

ETA

Mark, that looks nice. If I was a rifle guy, I'd go for it.

 

The original is at 300 ppi. I downrezed it to 72 for the attachment.

 

One part of my job is dealing with Art to render it laserable. My suggestion for best results is to lay it out in Illustrator on a transparent background. They may want an HPGL or and SVG file. Bitmaps don't laser as well as vector files just as a general rule. The place that's going to laser it may actually just completely redo the art. Using a good trace program will get the design 90% of the way there. Corel or Illustrator do this pretty good. At that point, you just need to simply the number of points and the end design will look great.

Oddly enough, these guys require a .jpg image for their etching system. I didn't understand why, since .jpg is a lossy bitmap and a vector file would be smoother, but mine is not to question why.

 

K

Oddly enough, these guys require a .jpg image for their etching system. I didn't understand why, since .jpg is a lossy bitmap and a vector file would be smoother, but mine is not to question why.

 

K

 

Because they've got a Bozo running their laser department? I do industrial lasering for a living. Lasers are vector devices. While you can get a decent engraving from a lossy bitmap, why would you? Maybe they've got cheesy laser software.

Oddly enough, these guys require a .jpg image for their etching system. I didn't understand why, since .jpg is a lossy bitmap and a vector file would be smoother, but mine is not to question why.

 

K

 

Because they've got a Bozo running their laser department? I do industrial lasering for a living. Lasers are vector devices. While you can get a decent engraving from a lossy bitmap, why would you? Maybe they've got cheesy laser software.

Maybe and maybe. I deal primarily with offset printing where 300 dpi bitmap is the rule, and I don't know much about the other types of production, but I do know that a vector will deliver a smoother mechanical product than a bitmap. In fact, the artwork for the NJGF shirts had to be converted to vector .eps files before the screen printer would take it. I'm not arguing with you, just passing on the information that I got from Maks, who got it directly from Spikes.

if i sell my AR i may be interested in picking up this lower...

I beleive photoshop lets you export it to a vector based illustrator file.

That is how I did it for the tshirts which required vector based. The guy still had to redoit for a portion of it. dunno.

 

As far as jpeg... that is what spikes told me. I believe they convert it, but I will ask them today if they prefer the in vector based.

 

Typically, they take a $25 fee for the graphics work, $25 for setup, and per engraving.

 

Because of the size of our order, they are waiving most of them.

 

Spikes just did the ZombieSquad custom lowers, for PAFOA I believe, and in the past, did the AR15.com lowers.

I beleive photoshop lets you export it to a vector based illustrator file.

That is how I did it for the tshirts which required vector based. The guy still had to redoit for a portion of it. dunno.

It's possible. I've never tried it... just not a vector guy. If you want, I can send you the 300 ppi .psd file and you can take it from there.

 

ETA:

Assuming that everyone who's interested is okay with the design.

Illustrator will allow you to import non vector graphics, but Photoshop is only outputting bitmaps.

 

There may be some filters but I've never found one that works.

 

Shrug, if they are happy with taking whatever is easier for you, let them. I'm sure they farm the conversion out to someone in India anyway.

Illustrator will allow you to import non vector graphics, but Photoshop is only outputting bitmaps.

 

There may be some filters but I've never found one that works.

 

Shrug, if they are happy with taking whatever is easier for you, let them. I'm sure they farm the conversion out to someone in India anyway.

 

Nono... Photoshop saves it in a illustrator format... as vectors, illustrator opened them up, and so did the program that the tshirt company was using.

 

will check.

I still have something that i need to do for total in illustrator, so if you need me to redo this image in illustrator I can make it happen. Just let me know maks!!

sure, if you can do it... will be best. =)

So, what's the final product going to look like? All this talk about computer's and technology is making my head spin.

awaiting pics from spikes.

awaiting pics from spikes.

 

What's the price? I want one but money is a real issue for me right now.

It will be under $140 including nics, transfer, etc.

 

awaiting form spikes....

Spoke with spikes today... they are going to run a sample and send us some photos. the photo we sent them was good.