Engraving Stanley Cup, Make your custom water bottle

Stanley cups and other Stanley water bottles are so popular because of the TikTok campaign and celebrities like Fantasia Barrino’s public sip! at the Astra Film Award.

Engraving Stanley cups is again gaining popularity because of the rising popularity of tumbler customization.

In this article, we will discuss how can you engrave a Stanley water bottle and what are the considerable issues there.

Can you engrave a Stanley Cup?

With a laser engraver, you can engrave almost anything including this. Since the Stanely cups are made of rugged stainless steel, they sometimes get people in trouble while customizing.

The good thing is that these cups are powder coated and that makes the laser engraving easy.

You can engrave a coated stainless steel mug with either a diode or CO2 laser engraver regardless thinking about their inner material. In the process, the engraver just engraves the upper layer (upper coat) of the cups so the stainless steel compatibility is not a concern here.

How can you laser engrave the Stanley Cup?

Of course, a cup with a large handle is not easy to engrave because you cannot simply place this under any laser machine.

To solve this, you need to take the help of the rotary attachment that keeps a cylindrical object rotating steadily in line with the laser’s speed.

We assume that the rotary kit will be available with your laser machine and if not, you should bring one from the sale manufacturer.

Another good news is – that you can engrave almost every cup and water bottle of Stanely using the same laser machine since the process is the same regardless of the size of the water bottle.

Here’s a list of top tumbler engravers.

Our Experience with Stanely Cup Customizing

Below are the Stanely customizations we did in our lab:

The first challenge we faced was deciding the design. Since such cups are made with rugged stainless steel, we were confused about working with the large designs.

The first work was the ‘white Isabel’ that inspired me to do more. We noticed that 60% power at 200 mm/s speed worked well. Luckily we had the rotary kits by the same manufacturer that synchronised well with the laser.

However, Positioning the material was tricky since we had been using a diode laser which did not have any camera. We had to manually locate the design position which took most of our time.

The best thing we noticed in the Stanley Tumbler is that they allow you to remove the large handle with a screwdriver which made the entire process easy. Otherwise, rotation on the rotary would have been challenging.

This is important to take an actual measurement of the radius because we had to set the engraving designs using the same parameter in the Lightburn.

Tightening the chuck was another tricky job since the Stanley Cup’s one side was narrow and the other side was wide. So, we had to manually rotate this several times unless we saw a perfect placement.

Important tip:

Before starting the engraving, you should always check the label in the gantry and the tumbler as well. It will help to ensure that the water bottles or the tumblers are evenly placed.

Important things to consider

If you are willing to engrave a Stanely water bottle, you need to consider the following points before you start customizing:

• There must be a laser bed riser that helps to place the rotary under the laser.
• Since this is a coated steel, you may use both diode and CO2 lasers as there is no risk of laser reflecting backward.
• If you need to engrave shiny stainless steel, you have two choices. The first thing you can do is to apply a temporary paint so that the laser does not reflect, or you may use infrared lasers that can engrave shiny steel.
• Make sure to use a laser with a memory function otherwise the work cannot be resumed after a power outage.
• If that’s your business, always try to get a powerful laser machine with versatile material compatibility.

How much does a Stanely water bottle engraver cost?

The cost of a laser machine with rotary depends on the capacity and type of it. For instance, a diode laser would cost you around $600 to $1500 whereas a CO2 laser would cost around $1500 to $3500.

The enclosed diode lasers often cost high as there are not so many choices.

Cost of an engraved Stanley cup

Normally, the Ctanely cups are available at a price of USD 55 which a little bit higher if you compare with the Yeti.

But an engraved cup would cost you around USD 100 to USD 150 because of the additional charge of the laser crafter. The price varies depending on the designs.

The delivery lead time is likely to be 3-4 business days but some stores deliver in 2 days.

In a nutshell, if you want to start a cup engraving business then it should be a great idea if you know how to do this and do a little more marketing.

Bottom line

Laser engraving a cup or a tumbler can be an easy job if you how to measure and place it on the rotary. We hope that our experiences with Stanley engraving will help you a lot.