INOX—creator of decorative hardware and door locks —debuts INOX Laser Art, which offers personalized engravings on INOX hardware in four options: black, white, color and copper reveal. INOX is the only door hardware manufacturer in the industry to house a vanadate diode laser, creating this customized laser work on location. 

“We heard from hoteliers and designers that needed personalized laser art on their door hardware, but had to invest extra time and resources to ship the product elsewhere for the work to be completed,” says Jeff Howes, President of INOX. “With INOX Laser Art, we are able to create these precise, custom designs on our hardware in-house as a more efficient, cost-saving solution.” 

Customers can provide virtually any line art and have it reproduced within an accuracy of 0.001 millimeters with INOX’s own Swiss-made vanadate diode laser. The laser is able to create intricate designs on any INOX door hardware up to 30 inches across for applications such as hotel door plaques and lever-sets, designs on residential hardware, corporate logos for offices and arena hardware for private suites. 

INOX Laser Art uses engraving, ablation and annealing techniques to offer black, white, color and copper reveal options. With engraving, the laser removes the material and creates a black depression on nearly any material, and colored oxides can be added to further accentuate the marking. Next (for white and color), the annealing technique is created by tuning the laser frequency so it heats metal to a precisely determined temperature, yielding oxide layers in different colors. Lastly, ablation partially removes the coating layers to expose the base material, which is used for the copper reveal option.