Lol not hidden or a secret…it just looks better…I also dont deep engrave on acrylic for edgelighting since it makes a shodow effect that renders the image blurry IMO
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It is not a secret once you tell it…
I wish I had seen this before doing my star trek console project.
The logo was on the front and I know it will accumulate dust.
Once I realized my mistake it was too late to go back and redo the panels.
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Well darn I wish I had to Spilled the Beans about it earlier LOL
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I’ll do front engraving for challenge coins - people seem to like rubbing their fingers over them like worry rocks.
The other not secret trick is to defocus the laser. It smooths out the very fine striations that can sometimes be visible. Crisp etches look good for LED edge lit items but defocused engraves look better when not lit I think.
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And another great tip! 
You guys must not realize how valuable these little gems are to those of us who don’t laser yet.
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Funny you should mention it, just watched the latest SarbarMultimedia video in which Russ defocusses his laser to “print” on a T-shirt.
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I’ve never seen that before! @dean has done some cool laser-cut T-shirts but we’ve never tried engraving. Neat!
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That guy cracks me up…love his modeling at the end.
May have been smarter to do a few test cuts before running that long of a file though…lol
I’ve got a stack of tshirts wanting to be laser scorched now!! Would be fun to do outlines for coloring in.
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That guy would be a great grandpa!
His series chronicles the journey of learning from square one. His engineering background coupled with his Witt make an entertaining video.
All his mistakes, exploration into the problem and the solution he arrives at make an excellent instructional experience.
He ordered an upgrade tube for his machine, and the vendor having seen his videos gave him an even more powerful tube at no charge.
I think I have seen most of his productions. A good one is his reflecting on what he has learned over the first year with his laser.
I highly recommend his series to anyone like me who is new to lasers.
@smcgathyfay - that coloring idea is great!
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That t-shirt engraving is going on my must-do list!
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Gonna try today if I have time 
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I did this on a pair of Chuck Taylors - works on canvas sneakers too 
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Is that something basic most lasers can do is defocus? <which doesn’t seem to be a word but it works>
yup.
Being out of focus is something most lasers are very good at. It turns out the hard part is being in focus. 
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So just how much out of focus can we adjust the Forge’s beam to be? I’m concerned that if there’s only a 1/2" range of focus in the normal operating mode, that we may be limited the defocusing ability.
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Defocusing will have a larger range since you can manually adjust that one a little bit (by removing the tray and lowering your material). Manual adjustment like this will result in some slight changes in how the cut plays out, but it shouldn’t be dramatically different.
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I am hope full to try some defocused TI if I can find small coins of TI
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I tried a little bit of defocused marking a couple days ago and seeing your post made me finally post a photo in the marking titanium thread. Interestingly, merely 2mm of defocus was enough to reduce the amount of marking down to almost nothing.
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O that’s a bummer my hope was that by having it focus in and out in the same engrave it would produce a wave illusion but I guess not
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