Anyone have an luck with Engraving on canvas?

I’ve tried a bunch of ideas, and it burns through regardless of power. I saw another post with awesome results, though I can’t replicate them.

1000 speed and 50 power as they suggested makes a visible image, but burns through the canvas completely. I tried cutting the power to 20, and while it was still burning through the canvas, the image was not legible.

Maybe I’m being obtuse, but I don’t get that part. What wasn’t legible - was it too light, but still burning through?

Visibility means char. Slow down dramatically (say 200) and see what happens with power 1. Ramp speed down and power up as needed. But at high speeds you’re ablating material without making the remaining material hot enough to darken.

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You might be able to enhance char by pretreating the canvas with something that will carmelize nicely. Wonder if a waxed canvas would engrave darker?

I wonder if wngraving would bleach colors like you see on some cardstock? Maybe certain kinds of dyes might help here?

Yes I’m sorry for not being clear. The engrave was barely yellow in color, but still cooking through the canvas.

Ahhhh. That makes perfect sense. I thought it was the other way round. That you wanted to go fast, and low power.

You might not be able to char canvas without burning through it. It’s pretty thin.

(Maybe multiple slow passes, defocused, low power.)

I have some here but I haven’t thought about what I wanted to do with it. Some loose canvas, some stretched and some stretched with white gesso on it.

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Slow, and even lower power. :wink:

I’ve been able to get medium-brown color to show up on copy paper, so the fine control is possible, I think.

I wanna try stretched canvas, anyone here have any luck yet?