Many people are laser engraving their Yeti cups and tumblers with some of their favorite designs to give it a more personal touch. Laser engraving gives people the option of having unique designs applied to their cups. It can be a logo, someone’s name, etc.
Plus, watching a Yeti being engraved can be pretty fascinating. Knowing how to laser engrave a yeti cup or tumbler seems complicated at first, but it’s actually pretty simple.
Here is some of the equipment that is needed.
TIP: A word of advice, start off with simple designs that contain letters. When you have more practice, you can then move on to the more complicated designs that can wrap around the cup.
Rotary Device
Sometimes referred to as “rotary attachment”, this device is what does the engraving onto the cup. The rotary device uses two different attachments. These attachments are called internal installation rotary attachment and externally installation rotary attachment.
To keep it simple, externally installation is plugging in the device into the laser engraving machine if you don’t have one already installed.
Internal installation is when the drive and power source of the rotary attachment are installed into the main box of the laser machine.
Prepping for engraving
Before the engraving starts, a few things have to be done first.
The Yeti cup needs to be cleaned with a Metal Marking Solution and needs to rest for around 5 minutes. We Recommend using CerMark to protect your stainless steel tumbler or mug.
Related: Learn more about laser engraving with metal.
You also have to make sure the angle of the artwork file and the rotary device match up. Rotary devices can be angled at 90 degrees and 180 degrees though 90 degrees is usually more stable when cutting.
This is a very precise process and even the tiniest slip up can ruin everything. That’s why everything including the Yeti cup, needs to be measured properly in order to get the best results. Here are some more details on that.
Measuring the Yeti cup
You want to take a look at your Yeti cup and find out where you want the artwork to be placed. Once you’ve figured that out, you have to measure the Yeti. You will want to use a fabric ruler for this. A fabric ruler can bend easily which is why this type of ruler is recommended. These are also very cheap and shouldn’t cost more than a dollar or two.
Take the ruler and measure the length from the bottom of the cup and the top of the cup. The measurement you get from this will be the width of the artwork in the design software. Then, you need to measure the circumference of the largest diameter of the Yeti. This measurement will be the height of your artwork.
Once you have all of the measurements, you have to put them into the design software. Again, precision is very important. You don’t want some of the artwork to end up on the slope of the Yeti or to be more stretched out than originally intended. That means if the ruler shows 9 1/16th inches, then that 1/16th of an inch needs to be entered into the software.
Engraving the Yeti
Once you’ve set your mug or tumbler in place, you want to make sure the height of the entire Yeti cup is correct. This is because the Yeti is laying down and being turned while it’s getting engraved. If one end is tilted slightly higher than the other end, the artwork will come out disproportional.
If everything is good to go, all you have to do is let the machine do the engraving.
It doesn’t take long.
The entire thing takes around 4 minutes but this can change depending on the side of the artwork and how many artworks you are trying to apply. But the average design takes no more than 5 minutes to be completed. Most of the time is spent doing the measurements and applying that to the art in the design software.
Summary
That’s how to laser engrave a Yeti cup or tumbler. Again, it can be tricky at first but once you do this a few times it becomes very simple. You can even do this as a hobby or start a small business with your laser cutter. If you have friends and family with Yeti cups, you can put some designs on the cups for them. Or, you can choose to make money off of this by offering your services to other people.
