Freeflow caliber engraved

[Marcos1211]

Hello all!

I have something pretty special for y’all. I’m letting go of my factory engraved freeflow caliber. It sits around too much and it’s unlikely I’ll play for a while as I’m in school. It’s in great condition and comes with stock goodies.

take it home for 1450!

[El Gringo]

That is Gorgeous

[Marcos1211]

bump

[SignOfZeta]

Is there actual engraving on there anywhere? Aside from the CNC grip panels? I just see screen printing that looks like engraving.

[Relief]

Yea that really looks like some sort of graphic applied.

[Marcos1211]

Yeah I'm quite sure, it doesn't feel like its screen printing. I found these comments from an CC post regarding this:

"I asked and they said it was a new engraving process to paintball and these were the guinea pigs so to speak. Buddy from FreeFlow said there were 19 people that chose this option out of the 180-200 total Calibers in full size made."

Buddy Baur had it done by one of his machinist contacts. It took a long time because there were finishing issues with the first round of polished bodies and they all needed to be redone from scratch.

"Of the 214 Calibers - 19 orders were engraving to the tone of about $1900 invoiced.
There were 35 original orders for Caliber minis that included barrel kits for the first time. No engraving option.
There were 6 Caliber mini overruns offered in 2-color matte finishes only.
Total 255 Calibers, of those, 19 engraved.
Countless blem/shop bodies from blems and machining learning curve. Suffice to say everyone involved with Caliber has come a long way in consistent quality. These engraved Calibers were the very last ones produced - and the best of them, I think."

[SignOfZeta]

It may be a process that they call “Engraving” but actual engraving means cutting was done. Are you sure there is depth to the print? It looks like a tattoo at the deepest.

Also, the way “Caliber” is written and the lines around there sorta conflict with the actual shape of the body…in a way few engravers would choose.

I’m not saying any of the claims are untrue, I just don’t get why they would invent a new process that was named after such an old process and not expect to confuse people.

[Marcos1211]

Hmm that's interesting, Its hard to describe the feeling but for sure the surface definitely feels different than the non engraved area. Theres definitely some depth to it though not as much as traditional engraving. I'll send an email to free flow about it and see what insight they can provide on the process.

[Marcos1211]

bump!

[Savet]

Did FF ever comment on the engraving process? I'll bet that it's laser engraved. Very nice looking marker.

[Marcos1211]

Thank you! And yeah buddy sent me this:

Well what we do is we anodize the marker first without any engraving.

Then we use a fiber laser to cut through the material and make sure there is exposed raw aluminum in the engraving area. Fairly deep, much deeper than just a normal c02 laser can do.

Then we open up a small hole in the bottom of the body to expose raw aluminum so that you can rack it on the anodizing rack and then it goes in the bath and the only pores that open are basically the pores in the raw exposed aluminum ( which is inside the engraving area)

Then we would soak the marker in black and the engraved area is anodized black while the rest is gray.

[SignOfZeta]

That makes perfect sense and I love it. It means the stuff won’t rub off.

[Chuck E Ducky]

So laser engraving, Still cool and looks great. Hand engraved like that would cost more then the marker itself. The new lasers can actually hog material out. I believe Angry dose his frame back strap with this method. I know I have seen the process done. I was looking into it to see if you can do cylinders but it looks like the process is only for flat surfaces.

[Super69ur]

Angry uses his CNC mill for the backstrap. Razor laser did the body stamps.

BPS used a laser for the backstrap of the SuperCell frames though.

[Marcos1211]

Need this gone, take it for 1450!