Trade Secrets

A misunderstanding!

Many people have a misunderstanding of the way in which glass engraving is carried out commercially. Hand engravers typically use a dentist drill to scratch and carve images into the glass, whereas commercial engravers use an entirely different technology:

Step 1: The artwork is generated by computer, and output to a 1200dpi printer. Step 2: The print-out is turned into a film negative, using a “Repro-graphic Camera” in our dark room. Step 3: The film image is then transferred onto a silk screen, using UV light sensitive emulsion. Photo-engraving engraves just the surface of the item.
Step 4: Using a rubberised ink squeegeed through the ultra fine mesh of the screen, stencils are printed onto a tissue paper and then heat cured. If 100 glasses are to be engraved, then 100 stencils have to be produced! Step 5: The stencil is then glued to the item of glass or crystal, using a water based adhesive. Step 6: Once the adhesive has dried, tape is used to cover surrounding ‘exposed’ glass.
Step 7: The item is then sandblasted in a special cabinet. Very fine white aluminium oxide is propelled by compressed air against the stencil. This removes the white tissue and cuts into the glass. Step 8: When the whole image has been deeply engraved, the tape and stencil are washed off. All the products we use are water soluble. No chemicals – we are a green company! Step 9: The item can then be washed and polished – and admired by everyone! Our linework engraving is deep enough to dig your fingernail into.

The Finished Article

When engraving single pieces, we have the facilities to use a UV sensitive film which, instead of being applied to a silk screen, is directly applied to the glass item. It is this technology which allows us to complete high quality photo-engraving.

About Us

The Beginning

The Glass Scribe was launched in 1983, from very humble beginnings, on a kitchen table, in Bedfont, Middlesex. Starting with a few select pieces of glassware, Simon and Gina Fletcher engraved trophies, awards and presentation pieces, for local clubs and companies.

As one of the fore-runners of commercial glass engraving, the company soon turned its attentions to the Wholesale supply of everything concerned with this market. Today, we trade from a fully equipped 13,000 sq. ft. factory unit, based in Dingwall, Ross-shire. Our professional teams of studio, engraving, warehouse and office staff, offer an efficient service, along with friendly and professional customer care, to our UK and worldwide customers.

Family continuation

Gina is now retired, and Simon sadly passed away in 2017.  Carl, their eldest son, runs the business today.

Carl is also responsible for the Buying and Accounts Departments and whose talents are also in artwork and the practical side of the business.

Vaida Martuseviciene is the Office Manager, assisting Carl in the day to day running of the business and is the first point of contact for many customers.  Vaida has been an important member of the team for over 10 years.

Ranges and Services

Our ranges of glassware and crystal are sourced worldwide, with items imported from Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, China, India and USA. As well as providing a wide range of glass and crystal, we offer a fully comprehensive range of equipment and consumables for engravers.

We advocate the use of Rayzist products for engraving and supply Rayzist’s materials, tools and equipment. Using the same materials and equipment, we also supply high quality masks (stencils).

Our services include a trade engraving service. We also offer a 4 colour pad printing service, as an inexpensive alternative to engraving. Ideal for larger orders.

We are strictly a Trade only company. If your interests are personal, or for a Club or Company, please visit a Directory of Glass Engravers at www.glass-engraver.co.uk.

Starting & Building Your Own Business

An image of the Homepage of the Directory of Glass EngraversWe hold training courses in both mask making and sandblasting, tailored to your ability. Both are free of charge, when you buy related equipment. Many customers call to try the equipment and we hold the relevant course at the same time.

Whatever you are looking for in a glass and crystal supplier, we look forward to helping you further your business.

Some of our Trading Brands

Information Sheets

Here are our general information sheets (all PDF format):

We have more information which is only available to trade customers. Please contact us for details.

Returns Policy

If you have received items that are broken or defective, please telephone us within 1 working day. Please do not return them, or deduct their cost from your invoice total, without prior consent.

Plain (blank) Products:

Damaged or Defective Items We require a digital photograph for the purposes of claiming from the carrier or the manufacturer. We will not refund or send replacements until we have received photographic evidence to support our claims. For damaged items, we also require a written statement regarding the state of the outer packaging and your opinion regarding the amount of packaging used. Items returned which are not faulty will incur a 10% re-stocking charge.

Refund/Replacement Upon receipt of photographic evidence, we retain the right to refund or replace, as we see fit. Where a replacement article is offered, we will start a new order on Your Account, on our website, for you to add to if you so wish. Note that we do not send replacement goods out free of carriage charges.

Printed or Engraved Products:

Damaged Items We require a digital photograph for the purposes of claiming from the carrier. We will not refund or send replacements until we have received photographic evidence to support our claims. We also require a written statement regarding the state of the outer packaging and your opinion regarding the amount of packaging used.

Defective Items We require a digital photograph for internal training purposes. We will not refund or send replacements until we have received photographic evidence.

Refund/Replacement

Upon receipt of photographic evidence, we will replace Engraved Products and send them free of carriage charges. We will act in a timely fashion, to ensure the minimum of delay in fully satisfying your order.

Upon receipt of photographic evidence, we will Refund or Credit Printed Products. We will not set up our machine and re-print (to Replace the goods), unless there are a substantial amount of damaged glasses.

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Privacy Policy

We take data privacy very seriously and this document describes how we handle and manage your data.

Summary

  • We are The Glass Scribe (International) Ltd, and you can contact us at admin@glassscribe.com.
  • We process your data to provide our services to you, or for our legitimate interests.
  • We only process your data for as long as we need to, and then we delete it.
  • We do not sell or share your data with others unless they are providing a service to us (such as payment service providers), or unless you ask us to share your data.
  • Our service includes a number of places where you can send data to third parties. If you want to use these, you should check you are happy with the way they use your data.
  • We do not market to you without your consent and, if you give us your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
  • You’ve got lots of rights, including the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. If you need a hand in exercising your rights, feel free to contact us on admin@glassscribe.com.

Who we are

The Glass Scribe International Ltd (‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) is a limited company registered in Scotland (registration number SC189385) registered at Spencer House, Caberfeidh Avenue, Dingwall, Ross-shire. IV15 9TD, United Kingdom. This privacy policy covers how we will use, collect and process any data provided to us.

How we process your data

Throughout your interactions with us we will collect only the data that we require in order to provide you with the service that you are requesting.

We may use your data to:

  • fulfil any contract that you have placed with us;
  • notify you about changes to our website or services from time to time;
  • review website and usage to improve and develop our website and our products and services;
  • where we have your consent, send promotions about new products and latest offers by email, phone or post;
  • respond to your queries;
  • where necessary, resolve your queries by passing information to relevant third parties such as a delivery company.
  • deliver prizes that you have won when entering competitions;
  • carry out analysis of data generated during your visit to our website for our own market research purposes and to track and measure the impact, results or pattern of website traffic and preferences from other promotional and marketing activities;
  • comply with any applicable law, legal process or enforcement by any regulatory body.

The key information that we capture and process is shown below for your information:

IP Addresses

When you access our service we will store a record of your IP address along with details of your request in our logs. This information is stored and used by our web developer to ensure the integrity of our service.

If third party cookies or services make use of your IP address we make sure that it is anonymised in whole or in part so you cannot be identified. For example, we use IP anonymisation in Google Analytics.

Authorisation and session data

Whenever you visit our website we will use several cookies that will identify your session to our service. This is necessary to provide the service to you.

Session cookies are used to match your browser with your actions on our website. For example, selecting a product and adding it to your order.

Browser cookies are used to associate and authenticate you with our site, and retain information pertaining to your use of our shop.

In addition to these cookies, there are several third party cookies and services which are used to track your actions on our site so we can identify areas in which we can improve the functionality of our site and give you a better service.

You may block, delete or disable any of these as your browser or device permits, but doing so will limit what you can do on our website.

Your contact information

We ask for contact information, including your name, e-mail address, telephone number and business name (if appropriate) so that we can fulfil any service with you. We may obtain this implicitly if you send it to us without us first requesting it, e.g. as an e-mail signature.

We require your postal address and/or e-mail address in order to provide you with an invoice for our service. This information is collected as a legal obligation and will be stored on our systems along with invoices for a minimum period of 7 years.

Your contact information may be stored in various systems that we use (for example: our accounting system). This is necessary to provide our service to you.

Your contact information will be retained until we are no longer under any legal obligation to store this information, or we have deemed all services with you to have been fulfilled, whichever is the later.

E-mail addresses

We store your e-mail address for the purposes of managing your account with us. This will be used for transactional e-mails that relate directly to your account or services. This information is required in order to ensure you are informed about your account and can take appropriate actions in various situations.

We may also use your e-mail address to send you messages about our service which may include notifications about newly launched features, improvements to the service, upcoming maintenance as well as ways to help you make the most of your service.

We will not send you any marketing messages unless you subscribe to our newsletter or special offers. You may withdraw this consent at any time by unsubscribing from the messages or contacting us, or amending your user profile accordingly via our website.

Your e-mail address will be kept until such time as all information associated with it are deleted from our systems.

Incoming e-mails

If you send us e-mails, these will be passed through our mail server. This is necessary to provide our service to you.

Outgoing e-mails

If we send you transactional e-mails, such as order confirmations, these will be passed through our external mail server and stored for a period of time (currently 5 days) to assist with debugging delivery problems and ensuring messages are appropriately delivered to their destinations. This is necessary to provide our service to you.

The information stored includes the contents of the message sent, the e-mail addresses of the recipients and any other headers.

E-mails directly to/from our employees

If you communicate with our employees directly by e-mail, we may retain your name and e-mail address in the mailboxes of the employee(s) that you communicate with, together with its contents and metadata. This is necessary to provide our service to you.

Call logs & recordings

We do not log or record telephone calls.

Backups

We store rotating backups of data for use in disaster recovery. Backup data is stored on site, and off site. This is necessary to provide our service to you.

Backups can only be obtained by authorised members of staff.

Designs

In the execution of our service, we may receive or produce designs that are to be printed or engraved onto our products, or a product that you supply to us. These designs are backed up as described above.

Such designs may include personal information (e.g. name and birth date) and are therefore subject to our privacy policy. You may ask us to destroy or correct your personal information contained within such designs.

You can ask us for the personal information stored in a design, but we retain ownership and copyright of all designs we create ourselves.

Designs are retained indefinitely, to facilitate expedient delivery of a future service, e.g. an award ceremony that occurs once a year.

Passwords

We never store your own passwords on our servers in plain text. Passwords are hashed using an industry standard hashing algorithm.

As a good security practice, we recommend the following with regards to choosing your password:

  • Use a unique password with our website that is not shared with any others.
  • Choose a long secure password containing either multiple random words, or a good combination of letters, numbers & symbols.
  • Exercise good password hygiene and change your password on a regular basis.

Payment cards

For debit and credit card payments, we use the worldwide payment system called Stripe. You can read more about Stripe and their privacy policy here.

We do not store your full card details on our system.

As permitted by Stripe, we store the last 4 digits of your card, its type and its expiry date on our systems so that you can identify which card(s) may be used for future payments.

You can store several cards in your account and choose which you wish to use during checkout.

Any data added by you and stored in your account

When you use our website you might upload or generate personal information, e.g. a design, or some engraving text. You will remain the data controller for all such data that is stored within our systems and are responsible for ensuring you have an appropriate lawful basis & notices in place to allow us to store this data on your behalf.

We do not recommend customers store any personal data in areas of our systems that are not designed for the purposes of storing this information.

Support by e-mail

If you contact us by e-mail or through our website, you will be sharing your contact details (e-mail address and/or phone number) with us for the purposes of responding to your query. This is necessary to provide our service to you.

We retain all support requests (including name & contact details) that we receive for the purposes of auditing and training of staff.

Job applications

If you apply for a job with us, we will store the personal data that you submit for the purposes of considering your application.

Job application data is kept for one month after the corresponding position has been filled.

Our servers

We operate servers which are managed by companies compliant with GDPR regulations or are covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield or have other written privacy policies which we deem sufficient commensurate with the data they store or process.

Transfer of data to group companies

We may share and/or transfer your data with other companies within our group for the purposes of administration and company structuring.

Transfer of data on product or service acquisition

If we are acquired by another company or entity, we may share your information with the acquiring company so that they may continue to provide you with the services that you have elected to receive. You will be notified by e-mail in the event that such an acquisition occurs.

Third party processors

We use third parties to provide us with additional services in order to carry out our business. We maintain a list of third parties that process data on our behalf.

  • We may share your details with professional service companies such as delivery companies, accountants or accounting software.
  • We may share your details with companies who provide us with payment services for taking payments from credit/debit cards.
  • We may share your details with companies we use to provide computing services.
  • We may share your details with e-mail marketing software providers to allow us to send e-mails to you.
  • We may share your details with companies who provide us with communication services such as live chat or e-mail.

We will not share your data with third parties for the purposes of any marketing without your consent unless otherwise specified in this privacy policy.

Some of our applications allow users to configure integrations with third party services (such as e-Commerce Websites). When using any of these integrations, you share your data with the organisations who operate these services. You should review their own privacy information with regard to how they will treat this information once it has been provided.

Correcting your personal data

It is important to us that the information we store is up to date and accurate. You may update the majority of your details at any time through our website, or you can contact us.

Removal of your personal data

In some cases, you may be able to request that we remove your personal data from our systems. As with correcting your data, you can often delete your data yourselves through our website. In other cases, though, please feel free to contact us using the information below.

Your rights

You have a lot of rights, including right to request access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data or restriction of processing of it. You also have the right to object to our processing of your data in some situations, as well as the right to data portability.

However, we may continue to process your personal data, despite your objection, where there are compelling legitimate grounds to do so or we need to process your personal data in connection with any legal claim.

If we make a decision which is based solely on automated processing (without human involvement) and that decision produces a legal effect or otherwise significantly affects you, you can request that we involve one of our employees or representatives in the decision-making process.

Notification of data breaches

Upon discovering any data breaches, we will notify any affected individuals as soon as it is practical. In the event of a data breach concerning personal data, the affected parties will be notified by e-mail to the main e-mail address we store with your account.

Use of our services by persons under the age of 18

We do not allow anyone under the age of 18 to signup, use or store any personal data with us on any of our services. If we discover or are notified about the presence of a user under this age, we will remove their data from our systems without notice.

Changes to our privacy policy

We may need to make changes to this privacy policy from time to time. All changes will be published to our websites and we recommend reviewing it to stay up to date. If we make any changes that we feel may affect your privacy rights, we will notify you by e-mail or by displaying the information within the our website.

Our lawful basis for data processing

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, unless we have otherwise specified above, we will be processing your data as a legitimate interest. These interests include staff training, ensuring the security of our systems and to allow us to operate our business in an efficient manner.

Where our processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time.

Where our processing is necessary for us to perform our contract with you, or to take steps to enter into a contract with you, we will not be able to enter into a contract with you or deliver our service to you if you do not give us the data in question.

Disclosure of information to law enforcement agencies

We may disclose your information if we are requested to by any law enforcement agency where we believe we are required to comply with the request under any applicable laws.

Data protection authority

You may have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority or the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom (our authority).

The ICO can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Other information can be found on their website at ico.gov.uk.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about our privacy policy or any other aspects of our service, you may contact us by e-mail on admin@glassscribe.com.

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Payment

Payment methods vary according to the type of account you have with us.

Credit account customers paying by credit card must pay prior to shipping, otherwise we will apply a 2.5% surcharge to your invoice.

If you have an authorised credit account with us, our terms are strictly 30 days.

Pending orders will be honoured for 30 days after any price change.

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Engravers’ Mask Orders

We offer a variety of preset sizes of Standard Design masks.

You can stipulate a customised size of mask or tell us the size of the image you wish to produce.

Mask costs for custom sizes will be added to your order when we process your order.

Artwork Requirements are the same as for Glass Orders.

We aim to despatch mask orders same day as receipt, providing they are received by 1200hrs.

Mask Orders cannot be placed with Glass Orders.

Mask invoices are issued at the end of a month and are based on the total value of all orders placed during that month.

Payment by credit card or bank transfer is strictly due 14 days after invoice date for Mask invoices. Alternatively, a credit card number can be lodged with us for immediate payment on our raising the end of month invoice.

We are unable to accept mask orders via the website.

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Decoration Options for Glass Orders

There are many different decoration options for Engraved & Printed Glass orders. For example, you can choose to have an engraving on more than one face of an item. Our full set of options will be shown to you when you configure a product for your order.

If you have specific requirements for an item, please state these requirements in the Notes field of the item when you are ordering.

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Artwork Requirements

Most products can be engraved and some can be printed with linework (words and drawings) or photo-engraved (from a photograph or greyscale graphic image).

When you place an order, you will be able to choose from our large range of standard designs, or upload your own design. You can also send artwork to us via e-mail or post.

Linework & Printing

All our artwork layouts are made using CorelDraw version X3.

For your own designs, we accept .cdr files (but not images scanned into Corel as bitmaps).

Alternatively artwork can be sent as a vectorised .eps or high resolution .tiff file. Glass is either engraved or it isn’t – the image must therefore be 100% black or 100% white – no colours or greys.

If you are selecting Printing, please ask for our information sheet regarding the difference between Pad Printing and Decal Transfer Printing.

Photo-engraving

We are able to faithfully reproduce photographs, including tones, onto glassware. We can also engrave graphic greyscale images.

Professionally taken photographs are always better than amateur ‘snaps’, because they generally have more tonal range (contrast). The more contrast, the better the photo-engraving. We can accept black and white, or colour photographs. High resolution scans are accepted in uncompressed (highest quality) .jpg format, or we can scan from originals sent in the post at a small additional charge.

Greyscale graphic images cannot contain any colour. They must be provided as .ai or .psd files.

Sizes of engraving are shown on our website. These are for guidance only. Depending on the engraving method used, sizes may not be able to be fully utilised.

We retain the right to artistic copyright on all artwork we prepare. We do not allow anyone else to make use of the artwork we prepare for you, nor do we relinquish our possession of that artwork to you, even if you pay an artwork charge.

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