How It's Made: From Your Design to Laser-Cut Wood in Under a Minute

There's no production line sitting behind this — every single slider is cut to order, from the design you build on screen. Here's what actually happens between you hitting "order" and a parcel landing on your doormat.

1. You design it, not us

You pick a shape, a colour, and type exactly what you want engraved — a name, plus either a finish time (or competition and date) or a short custom message. What you see in the live preview as you type is a genuine render of the shape, not a mock-up, because it's built from the same path data the laser will actually cut.

2. The outline and the ribbon slots get cut first

A laser cutter traces the outline of your chosen shape out of painted wood, and at the same time cuts the two narrow slots the ribbon threads through. Those slots are deliberately left with a thin solid bridge of wood above and below them — skip that step and the cut piece would fall apart in your hand before it ever reached a medal.

3. Then it's engraved — through the paint, not onto it

This is the part that's easy to miss in a photo: the laser doesn't print your name on top of the coloured surface, it burns through the painted layer at exactly the depth needed to expose the bare wood underneath. That's why the lettering on a finished slider is always a warm wood tone against whatever colour you picked — it's a different material showing through, not ink sitting on the surface.

• Nothing printed, so nothing to fade in the sun or scratch off in a bag
• Every letter is physically cut to the same depth, so it reads the same in five years as on day one
• The same process handles an uploaded logo, laser-engraved at whatever size fits the space

4. Threaded, checked, and posted

Once it's cut and engraved, it's threaded onto a ribbon for a final check against your original design, then packed and posted. Nothing is made ahead of time and stocked on a shelf — your order is the reason that specific piece of wood got cut that day.