Starting a Laser Engraving Business From Home - Secrets You Must Know!

If you've been thinking about starting a laser engraving business or have tossed various business ideas around hoping to come up with something that will work for you, a laser engraving business may be just right for you.

One of the nicest things about a laser engraving business is it really entails more than engraving but also involves laser cutting as well. The versatility of this business is incredible. If you have computer knowledge and love to work in a computer environment you'll love this business. Another reason it's a great business is you can easily work from home. You can take orders, do the work and all that it entails right from your home office or workshop.

The laser engraving machine requires little knowledge in itself to run, it's the software that takes a little bit of effort to learn. The laser engraver is easy to use and you use it like you use your printer. You just design what you want on your computer and send it to the machine and it'll engrave or cut for you and this is the easy part. You would be using CorelDraw most likely as that is the software most laser engravers like to use.

You can lease or buy a laser engraving machine. Machines run about $18,000 to $20,000. But leasing is cheaper. But best to buy your own machine or system if you can. Machines include the Epilog Laser, Universal Laser and LaserPro. The most important thing is to get enough power. Many people have bought these machines or systems, which come with different attachments and power, but tried to save $1000 or so and found out after they started taking jobs that they didn't have enough power.

There are rotary attachments that you can buy that will cut glass, but you could forgo this attachment and get more power-- that would help you take more jobs. There is no other equipment you need.

Get a large table size to handle more jobs and make sure to get a vector table for cutting.

Make sure to get the air-assist feature. This is very important for many projects and especially if you're going to be cutting wood, working with acrylic or rubber stamps.

There are dozens of items you can laser engrave including awards, plaques, trophies, tags, gifts, pens, jewelry, leather, tools, laptops, iPod's, iPad's, etc. But you may find other uses like some engraving businesses have - including custom engraving corporate names on cigars and for cutting jobs - cutting out fabric for sewing clubs for example.

Many people buy wood from lumber yards and create their own products and sell online or at trade shows. If you're talented artistically you may be able to come up with some good products of your own. You can see the versatility of the desktop laser engraver - lots of possibilities. Before you start a laser engraving business make sure to do plenty of research online before you lease or buy a laser engraver.