Out in the elements a protective coating is needed to prevent the brass from oxidizing or tarnishing. This is the process that happens when oxygen and atmospheric gasses comes into contact with the surface of the brass.

Most manufacturers use a high quality clear lacquer to coat the brass and thus protect it.

When a brass door knocker is engraved the engraving process cuts into the surface of the metal. If it is lacquer coated the engraving will also cut through the coating exposing the metal behind it. The exposed metal in the engraved area will oxidize and tarnish in a short time.

An engraved door knocker should be lacquer coated after the engraving process. This seals the entire door knocker and prevents your investment from deteriorating prematurely.

At our Your Door Knocker studio we dip our products in high quality UV resistant clear lacquer as one of the last steps in the production process. This completely seals the door knocker and ensures a long life.

When it comes to engraved door knockers, some fonts will be better than others.

Most engravers would use the diamond drag method of engraving for a brass door knocker. This method works by dragging a precision sharpened diamond tipped stylus across the surface of the door knocker to scratch in a pattern . Brass is a relatively soft metal so this method works extremely well. It creates crisp lines with which to form letters.

Some fonts use a single line to make the letter while others use 3 or more side by side to make the letter bolder.

When engraving a door knocker you really want the engraving to show up from a short distance. For this reason the bolder the letter is the easier it is to read. Boldness is achieved by using more lines to form the letter. A one line font uses just one scratch per thickness of the letter. This is great for small letters on jewelry and such but not so good for larger items like door knockers. Here we need at least a two line font.

Most two line fonts form outlines of the letters. The letter is hollow, that is there is no fill. For many door knockers this works very well.

Three or more line fonts use the additional lines to fill in the letters thus making the letters stand out more.

Font choices usually include the standard Helvetica, Roman, English and Script fonts as well as a selection of ornamental fonts. You will want to make your choice based on the style of the door knocker and the effect you wish to create. You can see our Your-Door-Knocker font choices here.

Font choice has a big effect on engraved door knockers. Be sure to take a little time when picking our your font.

Typically there are three variations of the name. One is to place just the last name on the door knocker. Another is the possessive version with a ‘s on the end. The last variation is a plural version with an s on the end of the name.

Before we go any further let me state that all three methods are correct on engraved door knockers. It just depends on what the you want to say.

The most common method is to place the last name alone in the engraving area of the door knocker. This method is simple and elegant.

The possessive version with the ‘s is also popular. This one is saying that this house belongs to this family. From an engravers standpoint there are a couple issues with this method. One is that the hyphen ‘ does not always stand out as well as the other letters on an engraving. This causes the engraving to be visually off a bit even though it is not. It also adds two characters to the line. This may be beneficial if the name is short. It will help fill the engraving space more efficiently. In the case of a long name it may take up to much space thus forcing the engraving to be smaller to fit into the space available. In the case of a last name ending with an s the plural would be a hyphen without an additional s. I recommend avoiding this. When engraving a name ending with an s with a hyphen following it the finished engraving looks off center. This again is due to the added hyphen not being as visible as the other letters.

The plural version is nice. It says more than one family member lives at this house. An s added to the end of the name only adds one character and will seldom cause a problem. In some instances it could cause confusion as to whether the s is part of the name or is a plural version of the name.

As I mentioned earlier the most common method is to put just the last name on the engraved door knocker. If you are in doubt this is usually the best choice.

Nothing personalizes a house like an engraved door knocker.

Well, that depends on the circumstances of the question.

For most engravers who charge per per character or letter for their engraving, spaces do not count.

If you are counting letters to fill a limited engraving area such as putting an engraving on one of our door knockers, spaces do count. A space takes up space so to say. They use up some of that valuable horizontal engraving area just like all the other characters do.

The actual effects of the space depends on a couple factors. The primary one being the font used. Some fonts are more condensed than others. They will take up less horizontal space per letter than a font that is not condensed. Another factor is the letters being used to make up the engraving. Some take more horizontal space than others. An example would be to use your word processor and type a series of ten “i’s” next to a series of ten “A’s”. The difference in the length of the lines is what we are talking about.

The font chosen combines with the actual selection of letters numbers and spaces making up the engraving determines how much horizontal room is needed. This is an important factor for engraving our door knockers.

On our site we have specified an allowable number of characters per line that can be engraved on our door knockers. This number is rather general. We do not know what font will be selected or what letters will be used before an order is placed on the web site.

When asked we can usually get a few more letters than we specify on the site. Especially if a condensed font is used. We can also vary the space between the letters as well as stretch and shrink lines with our computer driven engraving system. Any of these tricks taken to extremes is not very attractive. They must be used conservatively to remain a quality engraving.

At times the words monogram, engrave or personalize are utilized with the same meaning intended. In reality they refer to very different things.

A monogram is a graphic design created from letters of the alphabet. The letters used typically represent a persons initials. They are formed and interlocked in an artistic way to have a pleasing appearance. Monograms have been used to identify personal items for centuries. A typical monogram would consist of the three initials of a persons name. They would not be used in first to last order. If they were they would simply be initials. Instead they are First Initial, Last Initial and Middle Initial. The center letter representing the last name is typically the largest letter.  The other two letters are one half to two thirds the height of the middle one. Sizing varies depending on the artist and the effect desired. Periods are not used between the letters.

The term engrave refers to the process of cutting or incising a design or pattern into the surface of an item. Engraving is typically performed on soft metals or plastics and acrylics. There are many methods of engraving some dating back to the early days of man. The more modern methods utilize computers and lasers to perform the task. Earlier methods used manually powered pantographs and even hammers and chisels. Engraving is a high art form that is closely tied to the development of the printing industry.

The term personalize is a general term describing a design or name being placed on an item. Many methods are used in personalization. Some are engraving, silk screening, embroidery, sublimation printing and foil printing. Personalization can take on many forms and be applied to virtually any medium.

Each of these terms are closely related even as they each have very different meanings. They really cannot be used to replace each other. Especially when talking to an engraver who will visualize different things for each term.

It would be correct to say that I am going to personalize my door knocker by having it engraved with my monogram.

In our Your-Door-Knocker.com studio we can personalize a door knocker with a monogram or we can engrave a name on it.