Laser roll mark graphics?

[hq]

Of a few ongoing projects, there are couple of handguns - an early 1911 and series 3 Colt Woodsman - which are beyond all reasonable touch-up restoration. So, full on restoration will involve hot bluing with all required work stages, including polishing metal surfaces. The problem is that roll marks are in really sad shape, partly unreadable and on some spots completely worn out.

The obvious choice is to have a laser engraving shop re-do the roll marking as soon as the parts are in the white and polished, but there's a problem: they need graphics for the engraving machine. Preferably in some kind of vector form but a lot can be done with a high resolution pixel image.

Does anyone have an idea where to look for these? Google images wasn't of much help, as ideally everything should be in proportion and as simple black and white line drawings.

 

[entropy]

Draw them yourself; When I worked at a laser engraving shop, we would draw out amusing stuff to engrave on scrap. The shop should have a unit that can scan it in to cut.
Look at pics of the same markings on GunBroker or such.

 

[hq]

Thanks, entropy. I do have professional background in graphic design but I'm still a bit unsure how a DIY drawing would turn out. I thought about using tracing paper to copy the original roll markings and scan+edit the result but they're so badly faded that even that doesn't work easily. Maybe a good photo from Gunbroker, a few photoshop filters, cleaning up the image and vectorizing, but... there has to be an easier way, I really can't be the first person in the world who is restoring these by laser engraving.

 

[Jim Watson]

Oops, sorry. I did not notice your location. It might be hard for you to have work done in Florida. Would the company share graphics? Probably not.


I would ask Accubeam. There is an uncaptioned picture of a lasered National Match roll mark complete with horsie in with their NFA stuff at:
http://accubeam.com/services/nfa-trust-gun-engraving/

This is about that gun, a NM "tribute" made up from a beat up GM. You can see that it was completely scrubbed and remarked with laser engraving.
https://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=492794&highlight=national+match

A gun they remarked for restoration by Bunker Arms. May be the other side of the above NM, I don't know.
http://accubeam.com/our-work/laser-engraved-colt-1911-bunker-arms-accubeam-laser/

 

[hq]

Thanks, Jim. Good links and even though I had just thought about re-doing the original markings, the "tribute" idea of a vintage National Match looks fascinating as the internals of the gun will get a NM-type treatment anyway. It's just a question of finding the suitable graphics or at least a picture to use as a template. Otherwise I'd use an US-based company but shipping gun parts back and forth means astronomical amount of red tape and expenses so that's out of the question.

I also did a quick test with the Woodsman; I have another NIB Match Target of same vintage so I tried to trace the markings. It appears they're much too vague for that technique. Photo in a just right lighting conditions might just be the ticket so I'll have to experiment some more.

 

[Jim Watson]

Guns advertised for sale are often photographed well. Look at this Woodsman MT.
http://www.gunbroker.com/item/618713373

This 1911 is not so well shown, but there are plenty of others.
http://www.gunbroker.com/item/618775258

Could you generate graphics from pictures like that?