The BCHR stamping process was mostly limited to apply repetitive patterns. That’s because it was easier and cheaper to create one small part of a pattern that could be duplicated and jointed together to create a larger pattern. But laser engravers don’t have such limits. They’re only limited to the machine’s frame size. And, because the laser ‘dot’ size is quite small (only about .05mm square), the engraving can be very detailed.

So what else could be applied to a pen with a laser engraver besides a repetitive pattern? How about an image? Or combine related images and graphic patterns to create a ‘Theme pen‘.

What is a Theme Pen? According to Merriam-Webster, a theme is described as “a subject or topic of discourse, artistic representation, or study”. For this purpose, we’re using the ‘artistic representation‘ part of the definition. And artistic representation covers a wide range.

Start with an idea…

So you start with an idea. Have a subject near and dear to your heart? Put it on a pen! How about showing off your hobby? Everyone has one! So put it on a pen. You can design it yourself, or just tell me your idea and let me work with you. One way to create your own design is with the aid of an AI app. I’ve had few customers come to me with AI generated themes that were quite striking.

My theme pens are created around a central subject or topic and embelished with images around that subject. And as the definition explains, the theme’s subject can be almost anything. Case in point: I made a pen covered with ANTS I named“The ants go marching”. Why? I wanted to see how small of an image I could engrave on a pen and still have detail in the image. So what better image to represent ‘small’, than a bunch of ants.

Over time, I’ll be adding different examples below as I try to expand on theme idea’s with the engravers. Hopefully they will give you an idea for something that you’ll want to put it on a pen.

BCHR patterns used to only be applied to BLACK pens (that’s the ‘B’ in BCHR). The remaining two letters ‘HR’ stand for ‘hard rubber’. Now a days you’ll typically hear the term ‘ebonite’ used generically for hard rubber products. Chasing was a type of stamping process, pressed the patterns into the hard rubber. So hard rubber was used because it was soft enough to accept the impression.

With an engraver though, the image is BURNED into the material, melting it into a gas. So you not only have a wider choice of materials, you’re not limited to just black. I’ve tested a variety of acrylic colors and as long as the color isn’t too light, you can engrave on it (the lighter it is, the harder it is for the laser beam to penitrate and melt it).

Unfortunately, the issue with pen acrylics, is that SOLID colors are hard to find. You can engrave on some multi-colored acrylics, but it’s more challenging. If some of the colors are very light, the laser won’t penitrate. Metalflake will reflect the laser beam, so avoid those.