Lasermation

Philly has some terrific engraving options — and when I brought a job too difficult to Center City Engraving because of the 3d modeling required, they sent me here.
Diversion time — and if you don’t care about classic Italian bikes, you can skip the rest of this review. All you need to know is that Lasermation does some very high quality engraving at reasonable prices. I recommend them highly. If you’re one of the very few people who would care about getting the card suits engraved onto your brake levers, read on.
Bicycle panto is often the finishing touch to a classic Italian bicycle, but finding the bits can be extremely difficult (and costly). Pantographing can be a controversial topic in bicycle restoration; some feel that modern panto on classic bits is unoriginal and somehow less than panto done from the period when the part was produced. I personally find this approach to be stupid and overly preservationist. Parts manufacturers and bicycle frame builders did NOT perform the panto on the bits — they outsourced that to local engravers. The Colnago clubs on your chain ring weren’t put there by Colnago or Campagnolo — they paid a guy to mill the part, same as you would do by taking an unadorned part for panto now. You aren’t forging a classic by having this done, you’re doing the exact same thing the guy who built your frame did. For those unaware, most of what you’re seeing on eBay is not original panto from when the part was made, it’s recent pantographing. If the panto looks crisp and beautiful, it was done aftermarket and recently — you’re already buying a part that someone recently modified.
Now that we have that out of the way, I’m in the process of restoring a very rare bicycle and this model came with impossible to find panto’d Campy Delta brake covers and a panto’d 3ttt 2002 stem. It’s hard to find those bits without panto, and your odds of finding it with them are lottery level. Strangely enough, I had a De Rosa panto’d delta cover on a Merckx that I picked up — but only one plate. The other was missing. It worked out very nicely having a live model of what it should look like. I spoke with jewelers, engravers and factory guys over the course of a few years and no one could bite this project off because of the signature complexity and the 3d nature of the parts (much more complex than a standard panto job). Finally, I got the name Lasermation and they got me from A to B.
It’s not exactly what I wanted — the original was milled as opposed to laser and the original cut has more depth, but the signature is beautiful and it was amazing to be able to get anything done at all! Price for vector art, building a template and 4 engravings was $ 170…I thought VERY reasonable. Two week wait time — also extremely reasonable. The project I brought to them was difficult, I’m sure most would be easier and cheaper. When i eventually get the slide of my .40 engraved, I’ll likely have them do the work.
Overall — the signature looks great, is very accurate and Lasermation was easy to work with and reasonably priced.