I have a design I'd like engraved into a piece of metal. Think a keyring approx 5 or 6cm x 3cm. Picture on one side and text on the reverse.

Whats a nice hardy metal? I was thinking brass

What method of getting the picture/text on there will work best? Laser/water?

Lastly, can anyone recommend a company for this? Its just a one-off piece.

The text part would be easy. I had to get a medi-alert style bracelet engraved for somebody and I just went to the local locksmiths who also offered engraving. Same again for when I needed to engrave a brass owner tag for a dog. Assuming the metal you choose isn't too exotic, any local place that does engraving will be able to handle it.

How complicated is the picture though? A locksmith wouldn't be able to handle that part...

Its fairly complex. It will require a CNC machine I reckon.

You need one of these, or access to one. They use a dot-matrix printer head to put little indentations into a metal surface, giving a pretty reasonable grey-scale image. I've got a keyfob around somewhere that I had done at a trade show a while ago, it was just a jpeg they dumped through the thing and it came out really well.

Brass would work, but a nice bronze would be more hard wearing.

pca

Visit a competent jeweler. Most any jewelery store can do text. A good jeweler can hand engrave images.

Google for: hand engraving service

http://www.charlottesvillehandengraver.com/