Steve, T.- Laser etching is fantastic on anodised aluminum, but this may not be the material of your choice. It works also on stone, and I have hired someone to do this for my early granite Sawyer Equants, but believe it or not, sand blasting gave cleaner results and was cheaper. The sandblast masks were made inexpensively from an Adobe Illustrator file, which in turn can be made from a dxf file. Laser etching works poorly on bronze and brass, in my experience.
Will your idea work? It might. A similar custom product made from aluminum is available at http://www.gis.net/~geostar/ for just about $60. Patent-wise, I do not know how to answer your question. I doubt there are any active patents you would infringe upon, but copyrights may be a different matter. I would be asking my lawyer. Good luck, and don't put me out of business. Bill Gottesman www.precisionsundials.com In a message dated 7/24/2002 4:42:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > 'm interested in starting a web-based custom sundial business. My idea, > briefly, is that people would come to my site, select a sundial design, > choose a motto and other decoration, enter their location and other > pertinent info, and leave a credit card number. I will have some > software that creates the sundial and sends it to a manufacturer. The > complete dial is shipped to the customer. > I will limit my choice of dials to vertical or horizontal flat models > with simple gnomons. > > A little more detail: I want to etch the dial face into stone, slate, or > ceramic tiles using a laser etching process. Since these machines are > expensive I hope to find a service that will accept a DXF or other > digital format and do the etching. I provide a gnomon, package the thing > and ship it. I can write the software myself or use one of the many > programs available. > > A few of the many, many questions.... > Is this feasible at all? What success have others had with this type of > business? > Can zonwvlak be used for commercial purposes? > Is laser etching suitable for this application? Anyone have any > experience with it? > How do I insure that I don't violate any patents? > -
