Antares Instruments, Inc. was founded in 1962 originally as a reseller of engraving equipment and accessories and a manufacturer of engraving tools and master copy type. Antares was purchased in 1980 by D. S. Donaldson, Inc., an engraving company, owned by David S. Donaldson. The two companies were later merged and continued operations as Antares, Inc. The engraving portion of the business was discontinued in 1990 and the company concentrated all of its efforts into the manufacture of cutting tools for the engraving and sign industries.

Under the new ownership, Antares evolved from a small two-person operation operating on a primarily regional basis to a company with fifteen employees operating on a global basis with distributors and resellers in nearly forty countries.

Our growth over the years has been substantial. We offer a broad range of products which covers the vast majority of engraving and vinyl cutting applications. We are known for providing the highest quality products at competitive prices and we have gained a worldwide reputation for superior customer service and technical support.

Antares has three distinct product groups which are engraving tools, vinyl cutting blades and industrial tool blanks. The engraving tool category encompasses the complete range of tools for desk-top pantographs and computerized engraving machines. This line of products includes of top-loading and collet type cutters which are produced in sizes and configurations that are compatible with most machines currently in use.

Our industrial tool blank product line consists of English and metric size carbide blanks in diameters from 1.0 mm to 20.0 mm and 1/32" to 1.0" in lengths to 6.0".

These blanks are sold as solid rounds or as split parts ground to customer specifications and are used in heavier engraving and milling applications.

Our vinyl cutting blade line consists of a broad range of drag-knife blades for most of the popular plotters currently in use.

All of our products incorporate a variety of close tolerance grinding and machining processes including centerless grinding, surface grinding, cylindrical grinding and tool grinding operations. All of our engraving tool and vinyl blade products are finished on high accuracy 4-axis CNC grinders with video optical inspection systems. These machines have been designed and built by Antares to accommodate the specific requirements needed for the accurate and consistent manufacture of these types of tools. With the on-line video systems we have the ability to monitor the quality and dimension of tip widths, offsets and cutting edges as part of the manufacturing process.