Any advice on engraving on TCG binders?

[lindseyispear]

Hello! My friend recently gave me one of their old GlowForge and I have been learning a lot on designing and cutting/engraving on wood/acrylics… slowly but surely! I’m wondering if anyone has an info on how I might go about engraving TCG binders, specifically Vault X, which is save to engrave on from what I’ve read. I’m a certified newbie at this stuff and while my friend answers some of my questions.. he has no experience engraving on binders and directed me to these forums. I haven’t been able to find any sort of real tutorial on how to do a project like this. My friend mentioned needing a Jig? Any sort of advice or resources on how to do this would be so helpful! I was hoping there is something out there with step by step instructions that I just haven’t come across ( I’m completely unsupervised and alone with this machine, so I need a lot of hand holding that I’m doing the right thing hahaha). Anyways, thank you to anyone who can help.

[evansd2]

Welcome!

You’re jumping into the deep end here, but it should be doable. Here’s some reading to get started, then you can come back with specific questions.

First off when starting something like this ask yourself some standard questions:

Is this material safe to laser?

This is a big one. They say they use “exo-tec”, which isn’t pvc (good!) but I don’t know much about it. You’ll want to do some research to be sure.

I’ve written a FAQ that can help with these questions. #4 is about material safety:

Common problems/questions

Hello! You’ve been referred to this post because you have a common problem or question. Check out the list below to see what this post can do for you. Just click on a topic that interests you. • 1: I’m new to Glowforge and really have no idea where to start • 1a: What other tools/materials should I buy to go with my Glowforge? • 1b: What are the overall best practices for my laser designs? • 2: All about masking/protecting your materials • 3: I want to design/make a box • 4: What materi…

Will the item fit in the laser? Is it too thick?

Anything thicker than 2 inches is a no go in a performance model like the basic, pro or plus. Anything thicker than half an inch will need to be handled differently — you’ll need to remove the tray, here is a discussion about it from someone who was in your shoes:

Can't figure out how to engrave without tray

I read several topics about what to do when working without the tray. I made the helper from Guide for engraving thick objects without crumb tray Added materials under my box lid until it hits the helper. I set the focal point at 0.01 and also tried with 0.02. This is the result: [image] As you can see it started engraving at the wrong location. It even engraved outside the box lid into my craft material. What are the correct settings to do this?

How critical is alignment?

Check out #25 and 23 on my faq.

What setting should I use?

Check out #6 on my faq.

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That’s a lot of info but if you invest the time in research and do some small test projects to dial in your process it is definitely doable.

Let us know any follow up questions and definitely show us how it all turns out

[evansd2]

A quick followup: I got curious about exo-tec.

Looks like it’s a patterned polyurethane (aka PU), which should be laser safe. of course safe by itself doesn’t guarantee that it will engrave cleanly or nicely, that will depend heavily on settings and your desired aesthetic.

if it were my project I’d look here for other projects involving PU. Many leatherettes are made from PU as well, might want to search for leatherette projects too.

Searching the forum can be tricky, check out #12 on the FAQ for some tips there.