This could become a habit

Having confused and concerned everyone around me my repeatedly asking if they knew where I could get some molly, I finally got my hands on a spray can of Molybdenum Disulphide lubricant, aka “dry moly”.

I’d picked up that the grey powder could be baked onto metal surfaces using the laser, and the excess easily removed using simple solvents. Now all I needed was something fun to mark. The answer arrived in the form of €5 stainless steel hip-flasks being sold at Flying Tiger. I think I probably bought about ten.

The thought was to personalise gifts for some lovely friends that I go camping with in Ireland, and luckily Corona got in the way until I’d gotten my butt in gear. But this year I was thrilled to be able to bring them each a flask that looked something like this.

I did my layout in Inkscape, a useful alternative to Illustrator, mocking up the form of the flask to create a positioning template as well as creating my design.
The flask was then given two generous coats of moly, allowing about 15-20 minutes of drying in between which seemed to give darker results. It felt appropriate to wear some breathing protection as the dust is very fine.

The first attempt on a sacrificial flask* helped me to dial in the settings, which are unfortunately at the space and not on my usb. Will share at earliest convenience. I also noticed some buckling from the intensity of the laser, so on later attempts I filled the flasks with water to work as a heat-sink which worked really nicely.

One thing I hadn’t counted on was my source images creating double lines. I removed some and left the rest, it looks fine. This would have been avoided by filling instead of outlining, but I was on a deadline in the end and chose this faster middle route.

This was lots of fun and I am constantly on the lookout for more stuff to brand. I was also thrilled to see one of the flask has made it to a lava field! Hopefully other well-travelled flasks will check in soon, especially the one with a resin disco-ball…

_{* the flask is presently undergoing a transformation of it’s own as I use 3D printed stamps to emboss some up-cycled leather to wrap it in. No waste here!}