Pendant Engraving Frequently Asked Questions.

Why Choose to Engrave your Pendant.

For Centuries, people have added meaningful inscriptions to their jewellery. Often with short, personal messages of love, dedications of loyalty, or with political affiliation statements, or even with small artworks.

As engraving processes have been combined with technology, engravings such as fingerprints, symbols and handwriting copy and small artworks have become more easily available to incorporate into the design of the engraving in addition to traditional text inscriptions.

Updating an existing piece of jewellery with a new inscription can perceived as a heartfelt and eco-friendly way to uplift an existing piece of jewellery with renewed or deeper meaning, increasing its wearable longevity. It can avoid the extraction of new, precious metal material and chemical processes often involved in gifting a brand new piece of jewellery.

What types of Pendants Can be Engraved?

Most plain, sturdy, solid, flat pendants with no decorative embellishments or stones can be engraved by us. This service is available on most metals (Sterling Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium, Stainless Steel). Unfortunately we do not offer an engraving service on Tungsten. This might include pendants such as dog tag style, flat hearts, flat disks, medical tags and more. (for lockets, please see our separate listing).

Pendants with stone settings or decorative embellishments, or deeply curved pendants may or may not be suitable for engraving on our machines. Please feel free to ask about your specific piece. Because of the extra set-up time for pendants that are deeply curved, set with stones or decorative embellishments, there will be an extra charge for these items.

White gold pendants, or other plated metals will also generally require re-plating. This optional service will be at additional cost.

If your pendant is scratched, then please ask about polishing options.

What can be engraved on a Pendant?

We offer many options for what types of engraving you can add to your jewellery, allowing you to use your imagination freely for true, meaningful personalisation. These options include standard text engraving in most freely available fonts, symbols, your own artwork, fingerprint, handwriting, patterns or logos, monograms etcetera.

What you can engrave on your own pendant will be dependent upon with and size of piece, whether there are any other settings and/or embellishments and the placement of any hallmark or maker engravings.

Can you engrave on both sides of my Pendant?

Most plain, flat metal sturdy pendants sturdy pendants can be engraved on both sides.

Prior to accepting your payment for our engraving service, we will ask you to offer a clear description and clear photographs of your pendant to check as to whether it is suitable to be engraved on our machines. These questions are asked in order to save your time and wasted postage fees if your request is not achievable.

Why choose us to Engrave your Jewellery?

Insurance.

All prices include insurance within our workshop up to a maximum of £750 per item. Please see our terms and conditions for further information.

For postal services, we recommend that you use a service that insures your jewellery to the replacement value, as we cannot be held responsible for items that are lost or damaged in transit to or from our workshop. We take photographs of your jewellery upon arrival at and despatch from our workshop.

All prices are plus postage fees (Free for collection from The Engraving Van). We recommend that you chose fully insured postage options, such as Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Experience.

In addition to being experienced engravers, we are also qualified and experienced in Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery Design and making. This means that we know how to take care of your precious jewellery when it is in our care.

Engraving Methods.

We are proud that we primarily engrave using a traditional method of (machine) engraving using a diamond tipped tool. The diamond tool is moved across the metal to remove some of the surface layers, leaving a clear, bright cut. For this reason, it is often praised as being one of the most durable types of machine engraving and is suitable for very fine, detailed engraving. This method has been used to personalise jewellery and other objects for decades.

More recently, this technique has been combined with contemporary digital technologies to make it easier and quicker to convert any style of font, design or image for the engraving process. Because the process is faster than Hand Engraving, it can offer a more affordable engraving option for customers.

For some styles of engraving on suitable objects, we also offer deep, milled engraving. This technique cuts away more of the surface of the metal to leave a deeper engraving. This particular style of engraving is not suitable for intricate or fine detail designs. Please ask us if you are interested in deep Mill Engraving.

For some objects, we still find it best to engrave on our manual engraving machine.

Customer Service.

We are a small workshop and take time to work with you personally to check your exact requirements and only engrave your jewellery once you have confirmed that you are happy with the proof (draft engraving) we send to you by email. Although our timescales are efficient, we do not rush turnaround of your engraving on an impersonal, factory production type basis. There is no middleman. You will be communicating with the engraver themselves to ensure there are no communication errors.

Cleaning, Polishing and Plating.

We offer a complimentary light surface clean and polish of your jewellery prior to engraving (optional and product specific). If your jewellery is deeply scratched, where relevant, we offer an optional re-finish and polish service at additional cost (product specific). For white gold jewellery, we can arrange for these to be rhodium re-plated at additional cost (product specific).

Sustainability.