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The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) requires that all children's goods made on or after August 14th have a tracking label. The label must be permanent and include:
- Manufacturers Name
- City, State, Country of manufacture
- Date of manufacture
Up until this point I have been using an electric branding iron that reads "Handcrafted by Greco Woodcrafting". When everything was just right, the brands looked really nice. The problem is that it wasn't very easy to get it just right. This thing gets HOT! My hand is at the end of a 12" handle, and if I'm pressing down the rising heat starts to become too much after just a couple of moments.
On top of that, sometimes it would be slightly crooked or only half would get a good burn. And this is from a single faceplate. I couldn't imagine trying to get all of the above criteria and have a professional appearance.
After some careful consideration, I decided laser engraving would be my best solution for a couple of reasons.
Each toy I build is designed to be handed down from generation to generation. Not only did I want to use a method that would ensure the required information was there for the life of the toy, but also for it to be as professional as possible. I'd hate to spend all of the time on attention to detail that I do only to have a sloppy label applied. But when I looked into the costs, I was given a quote of $5.00 per toy. That, coupled with the time to bring the toys to the engraver and gas costs was just too much to handle.
I went to a local engraver and explained my situation. I was fortunate that the engraver was willing to help out a fellow local businessman and gave me a rate of $3.00 per toy. I felt that was really the most I could add to my lower priced toys while being able to absorb the time and cost of transporting the toys back and forth.
So my advice for anybody else in a similar situation is if you have a possible solution that is local, go talk to them. Especially in today's economy, local business are willing to help each other out.
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