In the past we have offered free laser engraving, including custom engraving of client supplied art. In light of the massive increase in phone and email communication and the time it takes to properly deal with laser related issues we are forced to make a laser engraving policy change.

POLICY CHANGE; EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: All laser engraving will have a very reasonable fee attached.

*The fee schedule for Anvil Arms AA15 Lower Receivers is as follows:

*Standard in stock image no modification or change, or placing plain block text on right side of magazine well: $10.

*Adding basic text above or below the main image in a plain block font: $5.

*Adding Text only or stock image only in a second location (Above the trigger pin) on the right side of the receiver $10.

*Any client supplied image on right side of magazine well or above trigger pins. $20.

* Installing / Using a custom font supplied by a client $10.

*Any engraving on the left side of the receiver: $15 in addition to previously noted charges.

*Any receiver with a serial number lower than AA003650 will still fall into the previous policy and would be entitled to one free engraving.

*Engraving on other brands of AR15 type receivers (Not Anvil Arms) is also available at the charges noted above plus $15.

Currently, we engrave ONLY on the left or right side of the receiver, on the magazine well, above the trigger pin and on the flat surface covered by the pistol grip. We DO NOT engrave on the front of the magazine well.

Custom serial numbers are currently not available.

Only the standard industry recognized “SAFE” and “FIRE” markings will be used on the receiver. For liability and logistical reasons we will not engrave cool words or pictures instead of the standard fire and safe markings.

If the receiver must be shipped, of course shipping and insurance charges would apply, usually about $12 for a single lower receiver. Please be sure to check with us before sending in any project so we can quote the proper shipping based on exactly what you will be sending us.

All we need is the part to be engraved, usually the lower receiver, so shipping charges are minimal. You can leave “the guts” in and the stock on. However, the more “stuff” you send us the more insurance it takes, stocks take a larger box, it all adds to the price of return shipping.

NOTE: A lower receiver with a standard carbine stock will fit into the machine with no problem. Some custom stocks must be removed. ALL rifle length buffer tubes (and stocks) must be removed to fit into the machine. Removing and reinstalling any stock or part of a stock insures a $10 charge.

Shipping firearms is easy but must be done properly, please see our weapons shipping page for information on properly shipping firearms

We will be happy to engrave another brand of AR15 type receiver for a fee of $15.00 in addition to the charges noted above for a regular Anvil Arms receiver (See question #1). If the receiver must be shipped, of course shipping and insurance charges would apply.

We always ship UPS and insure for the full replacement value of the item(s) being shipped. We look at the current retail pricing to replace your components as shipped and insure for that amount. This covers both us and you in case of loss. The more expensive the receiver and assorted parts you send us the more insurance is going to cost. The range is usually from about $12.50 for a striped $100-$150 receiver to about $22.50 for one of the premium priced brands with a full LPK, 2 stage trigger and premium priced stock.

Use your discretion when deciding on how much “stuff” to leave attached to your lower receiver when sending it in to us. Please be sure to contact us prior to sending a project for engraving and be sure to tell us what brand and what components your sending so we can quote the proper amount for insured return shipping.

VERY IMPORTANT: We have laser engraved literally thousands of Anvil Arms receivers, we know exactly how to set the machine for our forged 7075 T-6 aluminum that has been treated with the exact Mil-Spec hard coat anodizing and then Teflon coated. Many other brands do not use the same metals, anodizing or Teflon coating. This saves them money. Many other brands also change their components or finishing process over time. We have lasered enough other brands to be very familiar with what changes to the laser settings are needed to product the clean white coloring we get on our receivers. However, due to the way the laser reacts with various changes in materials and finishing processes, (And the fact that we obviously have no knowledge of what factory uses exactly what material/process for your particular receiver) we can not guarantee that your particular project will result in the bright white color that our receivers produce. Probably 90% of the time we do the that bright white color but occasionally the color is more of a gray/white. It is still has crisp, sharp lines and edges, but the color “MAY” not be bright white.

Anvil Arms is a type 07/02 FFL. That means we are licensed as a firearms manufacturer and dealer. This means we are licensed to make, work on and modify Class III weapons (like machine guns and silencers). Because of this extensive licensing, you can bring or ship your weapons, and receivers directly to us.

All we need is the part to be engraved, usually the lower receiver, so shipping charges are minimal. You can leave “the guts” in and the stock on. However, the more “stuff” you send us the more insurance it takes, stocks take a larger box, it all adds to the price of return shipping.

NOTE: A lower receiver with a standard carbine stock will fit into the machine with no problem. Some custom stocks must be removed. ALL rifle stocks must be removed to fit into the machine. Removing and reinstalling any stock or part of a stock insures a $10 charge.

Shipping firearms is easy but must be done properly, please see our weapons shipping page for information on properly shipping firearms.

We have thousands of in stock designs about 35,000-40,000 far to many to even consider making an on line display of them. HOWEVER.. we are now working on doing just that! It will take months to finish but soon you will start to see some samples and it will grow monthly. To help you find the right image all we need to know is what sort of image your looking for and we can advise what we have that might work for you. Once we narrow it down in some rare cases we can send you a sample to look at and figure out exactly what you want. If you have a specific image you would like, feel free to submit a picture in jpg format or a website link to a service like photobucket to see if we have an image like it. Please understand that this is not suitable for us to use as “The image” to engrave, this is only a sample of what your looking for to enable us to be able to find it if we have it.

Also, we are happy to look at an image to give a somewhat educated opinion as to if we think it would look good as an engraving once built into the proper file type. This can help you decide if an image is worth pursuing or not.

You can also see the images on this page for some ideas of images we have already done and therefore obviously have in stock: Anvil Arms Pictures Pages

If your wanting something we do not have in stock you are welcome to provide it. We do that a lot with stuff like family crests, and so forth.

PLEASE NOTE: We get well over 75 phone calls and 150 emails each day. Many of these contacts have to do with the laser engraving that we offer. It has become a big problem (and takes up a LOT of our time) despite the very clear directions here, several times a day we get images in formats other than what is listed here and that are clearly not up to the quality standard required in order to give you a top quality image.

Remember, “Trash in, trash out.”

You will NEVER get output better than the quality of the materials you put into any project, and the laser engraver is front and center the number one proof of that.

PLEASE, ONLY SEND IMAGES AFTER YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THE BELOW REQUIREMENTS.

Please do not ask us to look at images that do not meet these requirements as we will only have to tell you that, “No, it is not acceptable for the laser”. Note: We do not mind at all if you send us an image in .jpg format and ask us to give an opinion if we think it is worth the effort/time/expense to build it into a proper file. That is perfectly acceptable as we understand that many people are not really sure if their idea will turn out well or not. We know your busy people and we don’t want you wasting your time needlessly.

We really do not intend to be gruff, harsh or mean sounding here, but we only have so much time each day to provide service to our clients. In order to be able to provide the outstanding service we have come to be known for we must carefully budget and use our available time. We will not waste your time, please be considerate of ours and only send us images for engraving that meet “ALL OF” the below requirements.

Just as if you were taking your company logo to a printing shop to have business cards made, in order to get professional results you would need “Camera ready art”. In order to get professional laser results, the laser needs exactly the same thing. If you can’t do it yourself, please consider enlisting the assistance of a professional. (See next FAQ below) It will make everything go smoother for you and us.

For some samples of what kind of images work best, take a look at our AR15.com Industry Provider Section "Owners Picture Page"

If you would like to provide us an image to laser here is what we need:

High Resolution (600+dpi works great!)

Line Art

Silhouettes work very well.

DO NOT use the “Hairline” or “super fine” drawing tool as the laser will not pick that up. You must use at least the next side larger (Fatter) line.

Did we mention, HIGH RESOLUTION??

Saved as one of the 3 following file extensions: cdr, psp, pdf. We MUCH prefer the cdr format as it is directly compatible with Corel, the program we use. .pdf would be the second choice. .psp can work but it is a real pan for us to use. NOTE: IF SENDING A .CDR FILE IT MUST BE SAVED AS A VERSION “X3”, OR OLDER, NOTING NEWER.

It MUST be Black and White only, no color, no gray, no grayscale – BLACK AND WHITE ONLY.

Any special fonts will have to be supplied and there is a $10 charge per font for us to install and use them. If you must have a specific special font your probably going to have to supply the font file for us.

There must not be a background of any kind. No background box, no black screen, no clear background, no nothing. The image must appear to be “floating” on your screen. This does not mean that your image is not allowed to be inside a circle or square outline that you want to be part of the image, it means the image must not be “placed on” a background of any kind. If you do not understand this, please consult a graphics design professional.

It needs to be saved as a VECTOR or fully scalable file. We WILL be changing the size of the image you submit. If it is not saved correctly not all of the lines will maintain the proper aspect ratio and width making your image look very poor or even completely non-usable.

(Just FYI: cdr is Corel Draw - the preferred format – for the most part, the .pdf files seem to be working fairly well too)

When working on the image, remember, when put onto a lower receiver, the background will be black, the image will be white. Usually what you will be working on is a white background, your image is black. When you are, remember everything you see in black will be a white image on your lower receiver.

If you go to a graphics professional they will be very familiar with these terms.

NOTE: For a FREE trial version of CorelDraw go to the "Corel website" and download it! )

The laser is VERY accurate and will faithfully reproduce each and every imperfection in your submitted image. For best results, create the image using a vertical height measurement of something like 6-8 inches. Once saved as a vector image (or scalable image) check it at a size so large it will fill your screen. You should see clear sharp crisp lines. No blurring, no pixilation (jaggies), just clean sharp black lines on a white background. Do not worry about setting the exact size of the image, we will do that for you. The exact size depends on a lot of factors, far to many to go into here. If you followed the above directions properly, the image will be scalable anyway so it does not matter, so don’t waste your time worrying about it.

NOTE: Many people think that simply “converting” from one file format to the needed format will get the job done. This is very rarely ever the case. Almost always the image starts off at to low of a quality to be usable. Every time there is a conversion from one type of file to another there is a loss of quality. Obviously starting with a low quality image, converting it and loosing more quality is not going to produce the super high quality image that the laser needs to give you a top quality job. Remember, the better the quality in, the better out. The worse in, the worse out. This simply can not be stated strongly enough.

SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER when your setting up your image:

1) Image size: Remember you only have a surface area of about 1.3x1.3 inches. Keep this in mind as you consider having the preamble to the constitution or other such wordy text engraved. The laser is capable of incredibly fine detail, but do you really want people to have to use a 5x magnifying glass just to be able t figure out what your engraving is or what the tiny text says?

2) Shape of “Canvas”: When looking at the side of the magazine well from the right side of the weapon, the bottom of the magazine well is slanted from low left to higher on the right. This makes the “canvas” smaller than it really looks to be. If you have an image and want to put text with it think about this. The test will (usually) be “level” left to right. This means that the bottom of the right side of the text must be higher than the slant or of course you will loose part of your text. By forcing the test up like that it makes the available space above the text fairly small which severely limits the space available for your image. If you want to put text with your image consider putting it on top of the image where there is a “level” upper border. That way your image can extend down more into the available area. This makes even a larger difference when your image is rounded on the bottom or in cases where there is nothing in the bottom right corner area of the image because you can use that much more of the available space on the left side without crowding the lower right side border to much. We can also slant the text as we did in image 68 (page 3) on the AR15 link provided above.

If all of this seems to much for you to do (I know it is for me!) Please consider sending your image to a professional computer graphic artist so they can properly build it for you. Considering the value of the receiver your buying, spending a few dollars to have the permanent image professionally mastered is a very wise investment, and actually is not all that expensive, (Please see immediately below).

If you would like to submit your drawing to a professional service we can highly recommend a company we work with often called "Trace4Less". They charge $35-50 depending on the complexity of the image. About 75% of the time it is $25-35. You can contact them directly at: www.Trace4Less.com.

On their website page used to submit an image there is a text box. Be sure to copy and paste this text in the box:

"This image will be used by Anvil Arms for their laser engraver. They will be lasering on black anodized aluminum which will give a white image as a result. The final image size will be approximately 1.4”x1.4”. Please set this file up according to their standard requirements and also make a .jpg so that I can see it on my machine. Please provide the .jpg file in inverse so that the background is all black and my image is all white so that I can get a realistic preview what this will look like on my project".

(Copy/Paste that) After that you can put any additional image specific instructions you want/need to.

We usually have a return time (How long from the time we get it in our hands to the time we hand it to the shipping service driver) of 5-15 days, occasionally up to 20 days. Sometimes we can get it lasered, packed and shipped back in less than 5 days but that is the exception rather than the rule. It all depends on what else is going on and when we are running the laser for other jobs. The time starts when we receive it, not when you send it.

We do have an express service available. The following rules and charges apply:

You MUST communicate with us and schedule the job BEFORE you ship anything.
Your image must be received and approved for use by us BEFORE a work date can be scheduled.
Shipping from you to us will be done via second day or overnight delivery using UPS (The brown truck) ONLY.
Shipping from us will be UPS only and can be your choice of “Speeds”. Shipping charges will vary accordingly*.
The unit will be lasered, packed and shipped the next business day after we receive it. The charge for this is $20 in addition to the normal lasering fee.

For our fastest service you will use UPS overnight Early AM delivery*.
You MUST communicate with us and schedule the job BEFORE you ship anything.
Your image must be received and approved for use by us BEFORE a work date can be scheduled.
We will receive, laser, repack and ship the same day we get it.
Shipping from us will be UPS only and can be your choice of “Speeds”. Shipping charges will vary accordingly.
The charge for this service is $45 in addition to the normal lasering fee.
Using this service you can send out and get back your receiver in as little as 2 days total.

* Shipping charges note: You can expect that Overnight Early AM delivery of one stripped receiver will cost you about $40-60. Overnight afternoon delivery is about $30-50. Second day is about $20-30. This is based on shipping one stripped receiver with a replacement cost of $200 or less. If you ship a more expensive receiver insurance will obviously be more. If you ship with internal parts and buffer tube in a large box insurance and basic shipping will be more. Possibly 25 to 50% more. Please DO NOT email us and ask us for a shipping quote. Instead use the numbers above to get a good idea of what it will be and use your judgment to evaluate the value vs the cost. Because of the variable of return shipping charges, this service can only be paid via credit card. A handling charge of 3% will be added to the total.

Be sure to see our weapons shipping page for information on properly shipping firearms to us.

To be perfectly clear, this is laser engraving. The image is burned onto the material with a laser beam of light. There is no paint, decal or any other such material used. The image is permanent. Once engraved it will NOT rub or wear off. To remove the image you would have to blast off the surrounding anodizing to make the entire area "blank" or grind it off with a disc grinder, much like the factory roll marked serial numbers.

The image is not recessed into the metal like the factory roll marks. For lack of better more scientific explanation, the anodizing is burned off and or bleached white. There is nothing (no grove or depression in the metal) to "fill in" with color. Much like bleach being spilled on your blue jeans, you only get white as a result. The laser can be adjusted for both speed and beam intensity and with some luck and practice a "subdued" coloring of black or light grey can be obtained. The entire image will be the same shade of the same white or light gray. This is very much a trial and error technique and no guarantees of exact shading can be given when attempting this technique. – NOTE: Due to the VERY erratic nature of this technique we no longer offer it at all. All images will be processed in the same “Normal” way. We apologize for this policy but experience can be a cruel teacher.