Also am ditching the old brass branding tool and trying to create a laser version. 

Don't ditch the iron Splinter... you now have a box to put it in.
Where is the coiff' in the logo... how do we know it is full of splinters?

 (the black is really just uncolored and shows the burned etch) 

Do you burn it "out of focus" to just char and not get depth?

If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD