Specsheet
Marking a serial number before polishing or finishing is essential to keep a permanent record on your parts, especially for traceability and compliance.
By Ms Nuraan Fakier, MD, Laser
Serial numbers are critical for traceability, warranty claims, and compliance with standards or customer requirements. If you leave them off until after a surface is polished, ground, or coated, you often lose the chance to make a permanent mark. In most South African shops, painted or polished surfaces make later marking hard or risky, and touch-up is never as durable or neat.
We see this issue mainly in metalworking, fabrication, and some plastics, where a fibre laser, engraver, or dot-peen is used. High-value parts, safety-critical components, and anything needing paperwork can become impossible to track if the serial is missing or gets polished off. If you work in a regulated field, or supply to municipalities or larger industry, this is even more important.
To make sure your serial marks survive all downstream processes, always do permanent marking before any polishing, blasting, painting, or passivation. This gives a record that will not be erased by later finishing steps. Here is what I recommend for most workshops:
If you are unsure your current process is giving you readable, permanent marks, ask us about the best fit for your application. We can advise on machines, settings, and where to place serials so they survive all finishing steps.
Speak to your service technician if you notice marks are coming out too shallow, blurry, or vanishing after polish. We can help with test marks on scrap pieces at our Sunnyrock machine hall, or talk through settings on your Feature Fibre Laser or Engraver Pro.
The most common mistake is leaving serial marking until after polishing, painting, or passivation. This often results in marks that are either missing, too faint, or cause rework and delays.
Another issue is marking in the wrong location, either on a surface that will be machined away, or where it will be covered. We also see people using only a permanent marker, which usually does not last through cleaning or abrasion. If you are not sure, send us a message using our contact form and we can guide you for your process.
Continue with equipment, bays, or use our contact form.
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