Want a custom engraved coin? Look here!

Back in March, my Machining teacher got this tiny little CNC machine as a donation. Determined to put it to use, we came up with some ideas, and I designed up an aluminum coin with the school logo and personalized names on it.

This is an example:


Over the next few months, I have improved my process, the quality of work, and learned a few tricks. I made a special coin for another online group, this time using an aluminum coin which I boiled for a good 20 minutes in a pot of hot water(This produces a cool bronze color).


Now, our program needs to raise $4000 to upgrade our CNC software. The budget is tapped out, but we can do fund-raising to make it. The teacher is perfectly willing to let me use this machine for this purpose, and make and sell coins(and perhaps other simple things). The only thing is, if we do this fundraiser, I am going to have to be in charge, because the teacher doesn't want to have to deal with it.

So, in addition to putting up flyers and getting other people at school to buy these coins, I figure I will ask you all, and all my other forums too - This is a good chance for you to get a cool looking unique thing.

It looks like I will be authorized to sell "standard" coins at $15 each. These coins will have one hole in them, a piece of standard artwork(Currently I only have the LWTC logo and the paw logo, but I am going to design a WG/RS style logo), and a name in whatever font you choose, curved along the bottom. The back side we will see about - The LWTC coins have "education that works" written on the back, our school motto.
Colors: You can choose two colors for non-engraved and engraved. We have a fair amount of spray paint and a few other tricks; tell me what you want and I can see. You can also have either or both colors simply aluminum color(Note: if you want aluminum color on the un-engraved areas, I can either do a shiny finish[leftmost in below pic] or matte aluminum color[middle two in below pic].
Examples of finishes: http://robbiethe1st.afraid.org/images/img_005_small.jpg

Example of painted finishes: http://robbiethe1st.afraid.org/images/img_003_small.jpg

Custom coins, depending on what you want, may be more in the range of $25 each.

As far as what I can engrave on these things:

• Text: Anything that comes in a TTF font can be engraved, any language supported by windows. You want Korean, we can do it.
  Text can be engraved in a straight line at any angle, or engraved in a circle/curve.
  
• Graphics: Only fairly-simple Vector graphics, and probably only two or three depths. I can adjust the finish to provide horizontal lines, or the spiral shown above.

Other options:
Color: I can either leave the whole thing silver aluminum-color, I can cook the piece so that un-engraved bits are bronze color; I can spray-paint either the engraved section or the non-engraved section; and I may be able to do two-color spray-painting using tape masks.
Size/shape: The material being used is 2" disks of aluminum. I can do a black plastic or white plastic if needed, and I can also do squares or rectangles.
Finish: I can do a couple of things: I can either leave it very shiny, with faint large circular lines in the finish - nearly mirror quality. I can also provide a much more "rough" looking finish, with vertical or horizontal scratch-marks. I can also provide a matte pebbly finish of several different roughnesses.

edit:
I just took a couple pictures of coins, stock and such that was laying around. I don't have a fully machined piece yet; all the good ones were given away to the faculty and staff they were made for back in Spring.

Examples of finishes: http://robbiethe1st.afraid.org/images/img_005_small.jpg
This shows 3 different aluminum colored ones, two spray-painted ones. You can see the shadow of my leg in the left-most one.

Example of painted finishes: http://robbiethe1st.afraid.org/images/img_003_small.jpg
I just painted the three colored coins today. Notice the matte finish vs the shiny finish of the fourth one.

Some artwork examples: http://robbiethe1st.afraid.org/images/img_004_small.jpg
The left-most one is a design that a voulinteer who helped create this system made. It got left because it isn't complete, but its great work.
The top one is one of the LWTC coins, with the logo engraved. This was done using an older process, and then sanded to remove burrs. I am redesigning the process to remove the need for that.
The bottom one is an LWTC coin, just out of the first setup - It has both sides cut precisely, with the LWTC logo engraved in it. There are a few burrs on it. Contrast this to This which I made using a newer process that didn't require sanding.


Please, if you have an idea, ask. I can tell you if its possible or not, or what it will cost. Tell me what your price-range is, what you would be willing to pay for what. I will see what I can do, and edit this post with examples.

I voted other. Depending on the cost of each coin, this could possibly be a nice gift to a few people. Could you do a full helm on that in a simple design?

Is that a hole in the top to be able to put on a chain. I think these could also sell as custom key chains or luggage tags. With like a name and contact info.

Can you do both sides?

Very technologial What prices are we looking at?

I'll think about it

I'm going to see about a few more pics later this afternoon.
Yes, that is a hole all the way through. We can do as many holes as you want, but unless we have at least one(in the shown position), we cannot do both sides of the coin(or, at least, they may not both be facing the same way).

Prices... still working it out. Somewhere in the $10-20 range it seems like.

Helm graphics - If you can find me something to work from, that I can vectorize... yea, easily.

-RobbieThe1st

Ok, updated some info. I am sure that I need to make a WG-centric design. What would you like on it? Give me some example images, and I will see what I can do.

I am kinda interested but I would not have a clue what I would want or what I would do with it.

I'm guessing they are going to be used for key fobs or pendants - either for the person, or as a gift. Luggage tags are also an option(Perhaps have the full address & phone number on the back).

Oh, pretty cheap, that's £5-10 GBP... if I think of something to put on it I might buy one