subject: Metal Designs [print this page] Okay, so we don't have flying cars yetOkay, so we don't have flying cars yet. We don't eat all of our meals in pill form, we can't travel through space and time in the blink of an eye, and we don't even have those cool hovering skateboards from Back to the Future Part II. But, we do have laser tools that can slice through metal like a hot knife through warm butter. We can even personalize items like pocket watches and cuff links with custom laser engraving. It's not quite flying cars, but it is pretty cool. Laser cutting and engraving have been around for awhile, but for the longest time, it wasn't as efficient as it is today. Today, we can create just about any design we want, precisely, through the use of computers to direct the laser point. It's funny, you know you're in the future when the items that were once seen as the dreams of the future become commonplace, almost mundane. Whoever thought, just fifty years ago, that today we would be using telephone lines to send images, video, music, video games, and just about everything else, into computers? And yet, the internet is kind of "no big deal" here in the twenty first century. The same goes for professional laser cutting . What once seemed like the stuff of science fiction is now used to personalize wedding rings, Zippo lighters, and custom stationary sets. All you have to do is take a look at engraved metal from the 1950's or 1960's if you want to know how effective laser engraving is. The lettering on an older piece of metal is usually chunky, ugly, and imprecise. Now, if you take a wedding ring and take a look at the metal marking inside the band, it's going to be delicate, with line work less than a tenth of a millimeter deep, and perhaps in some elegant form of calligraphy. Even metal cutting was a lot less efficient fifty years ago. Metal designs options of the past have been limited, to say the least. If you've ever worked in a metal shop, you know that precision is key, and it's not always easy to attain. One millimeter off, and you have to start all over. And you'd better be wearing thick leather gloves, at least if you hope to have all of your fingers by the end of the day. In fact, many traditional metal shops simply won't take clients who want tiny, precise, intricate work done, because there's only so much you can do with a pair of metal clippers. Laser cutting can, really, do just about anything you can dream of. ...And for all it's capable of, it's sort of commonplace and mundane. When you see a custom engraved pocket watch, you don't freak out and do a back flip in the excitement of the moment. This should mainly just go to show the overall effect of new technology. For a time, it's a dream, it's exciting, it's the wave of the future. Once the future gets here, we look at technology as something to simply make life easier. One day we may cure cancer, and that's an exciting prospect. But, a few decades later, we'll just be thankful that we no longer have to deal with the disease. That's what technology is for: It makes things easier.
