Author: Mark Elliott

Every year Dodo Juice do a limited run of Christmas gift editions and this year was no different. Using pj’s highly detailed artwork, we produced these awesome Dodo Juice Decade coins to coincide with the companies 10th anniversary.

Featuring their furry mascot ‘Mr Skittles The Third’ on one side and the company logo on the other, each side has been produced on 7 different levels to fully accentuate the detailed design without the need to use enamel colouring. The coins have also been plated antique bronze, giving them an authentic look and even feature a reeded edge around the circumference, similar to the old £1 coins. Measuring 50mm in diameter with a thickness of 5mm and weighing in at a hefty 48grams, these are a real quality item and helped us achieve the overall look and feel we wanted.

This Dodo Juice decade coin isn’t the first Christmas gift we’ve manufactured for the company either, as we’ve also made their Porsche inspired leather keyrings and the (now infamous) Mr Skittles The Third cufflinks!

Having known pj and Dom from the early days of Dodo Juice, it must be said they have helped and supported us immensely and we owe a great deal of our success in the automotive industry to them. They’re an absolute pleasure to work with and we look forward to seeing what’s next in the pipeline!

If you would like to take a look at the different styles of coins, plaques and medals we have manufactured in the past, please visit this link to find out more. Alternatively if you have an idea of your own and would like to get in touch, please fill in our contact form, send an email or give us a call.

Working closely alongside our local foundry manufacturer, we are now able to offer cast aluminium plaques. This is particularly exciting news for us, as it means we can manufacture items which are normally too large using our traditional stamping and lost wax techniques.

Sand casting is a method where compacted grains of sand are used as the mold material. It is one of the oldest and most widely used metal casting skills. Listed below are some of the key steps in the production method for the Scooby Clinic cast aluminium plaques we recently manufactured.

A pattern is made based on the desired design. A bottom mold is filled with compacted sand and the pattern is pressed into the sand. The top mold is then aligned and placed on to the bottom mold. More sand is added to the top mold and compacted until almost solid. The top mold is then carefully lifted and the pattern removed, leaving a vacuum in the the sand. The top mold is then re-aligned again to the bottom, and molten metal (in this case aluminium) is poured into the vacuum and allowed to cool. Once cooled, the top and bottom molds are separated to leave the aluminium casting.

Once the aluminium castings have been made, they are fettled to remove any blemishes/grains of sand sometimes caused by the molds and start to look more like a finished item. For these particular plaques, black enamel was then filled into the recessed areas of the castings and left to cure/dry overnight.

Leaving the castings overnight, gave the enamel enough time to dry. We then polished the surface of each casting which also removed any enamel that had accidentally spilled over onto the raised areas. This left the plaques with a smooth and shiny surface, giving them a nice contrast to the black enamelled areas. Finally we sprayed each plaque with clear lacquer to protect the plaques and give them a high gloss finish.

Urban Automotive specialise in bodykits, tuning, interior and exterior styling packages for a host of vehicles. With roots tracing back to 2013 emerging under the name Urban Truck, the Urban Automotive brand has expanded from their original offerings of Land Rover Defenders to include bespoke, luxury Range Rovers and more.

We first met Simon and the Urban team at the 2015 Autosport International show after seeing their impressive stand and array of high quality demonstration vehicles they had on display. Whist the vehicles were built to a very high standard, it did come as a surprise that non of them were branded with their company logo to show prospective clients who had undertaken the work.

After discussing a few ideas at the show, Simon got in touch and sent across some designs and concepts he wanted to develop. After some discussion, it was decided we were going to produce grill badges to replace the standard Land/Range Rover badge at the front and rear of the vehicles and also a ‘Tailored by Urban’ badge which would be adhered to the front wings.

The Tailored by Urban badges are solid metal with a chrome plated surface, leaving a shiny but durable finish. The text is chrome metal surrounded by the black background and small red accents with are all filled with hard enamel and polished, ensuring a nice even finish to the surface. They come complete with 3M self-adhesive foam strips on the rear, ensuring they stick to the contours of every vehicle.

The grill badges on the other hand were chrome plated, but coloured with soft enamel. This is because the curvature of the plaques needed to fit the standard plinths was so severe, hard enamel was not technically possibly.

Since manufacturing the initial items, we have build a great business relationship with Simon and the Urban Automotive team. Most recently we have produced the Urban crest badges which can be seen at the top of the page. These are plated in an antique style coating, giving a brushed look to the surface and coloured with hard enamel ensuring durability. These plaques have also been developed to fit on their custom interior carpet mats by soldering fittings to the rear of the plaques.