Catching up on some more things I made during the month of January! 
**January 13th:**
Playing about with some more dye sublimation. This time I was trying to sublimate images onto two sided aluminum square keychains. I used the recommended settings according to the manufacturer’s site. It turns out those settings don’t work so well on our heat press. Next time I will try different settings. Overall, it was a good learning experience (if nothing else, I learned to not try to test settings with several blanks at once! hahaha…):
Front:
Back:
With Key Rings:
January 22nd:
While setting up our (new to us) Roland Metaza MPX-80 Metal Engraver, I continued through the user’s manual through how to engrave a photo. I used (both sides) of a stainless steel dog tag to run through the first test runs. The first time I engraved the image, there was hardly any detail on our clothes, so I flipped the dog tag over again, adjusted the settings a bit and tried again. The photos you see below are from the second pass. You will notice that the clothes show up fine; but, we have lost the details in our faces ~ OhMy! hehe… I learned a valuable lesson. Make sure the image used has good lighting/coloring to begin with - otherwise it’s an uphill battle to get it to even out to engrave! 
2nd Attempt:
2nd Attempt:
2nd Attempt:
(See below for a pics showing the other side of the dog tag - where the details on the clothes were blown out…)
January 23rd:
A few hours later… I found someone to help me get the heat press out, then I used the same photo that I had used to engrave with to do a comparison on a dye sublimatable dog tag. I also tested a pink bag and a fluffy white microfiber cloth that I bought from Dollar Tree to see if I could use them for dye sublimation projects. The dye sub dog tag and the pink bag from Dollar Tree both worked GREAT; and, the fluffy white microfiber cloth worked MUCH better than I expected ~ w00t!
Comparison of Family photo engraved on dog tag vs sublimated on dog tag:
All The Things (that I did that night…):
January 26th:
Back to the Metaza… This time calibrating the machine. I used one of the copper test squares to test/calibrate the pins. It took a couple of passes; but, I finally got the test file to be pretty consistent. Then I used an image that was set-up to show the capabilities of the engraver to test the results of the calibration.
Copper Test Material (this stuff is expensive, so please do not use any of the copper squares to for personal projects):
Test Image - shows what the engraver is capable of!
January 28th:
Getting ready to start teaching classes on the Metaza - testing the center vise on pens from Dollar Tree…
Plastic Pen for Talan - still in the center vise:
Plastic Pen for Talan:
Plastic Pen for Evan:
Aluminum (or some other soft metal?) Stylus/Pen for Evan:
Aluminum (or some other soft metal?) Stylus/Pen for Talan:
January 30th:
One more quick round of center vise testing on the Metaza. This time with stainless steel pens from Walmart. I used the default settings for stainless steel. It looks like the pressure needs to be cranked up a touch. The Metaza is just like many other things we have at the 'Space, in that it’s always good to have extra material to do a test run to confirm the settings will have the effect that you are looking for! 
1st stainless steel pen for me - still in vise:
2nd stainless steel pen for me:
I had a lot of fun learning how to make things that I never would have even thought about trying if I hadn’t been a member of Dallas Makerspace! 