Hi lovely people, im after some advice the picture above is of a Airbus Helicopters AS365 Dauphin rotor tail blade. I would like to do an engraving on it ive been told its made out of coated carbon fibre, can i engrave on this material. I have a glowforge plus model. I dont want to damage my machine or cause myself to become ill with toxic fumes.
Hey welcome to the forum!
The answer is that it’s complicated, there have been a few discussions about this that you should probably read. Here’s a search link that will point you that way:
https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=Carbon%20fiber
Beyond that I have some advice on materials that might damage the machine or be otherwise harmful. Check out #4 here:
Good luck!
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Coated Carbon Fiber is generally considered a no-go for the laser:
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Yeah though “noxious fumes” is a little vague.
With good ventilation noxious isn’t that much of a concern. I’d be more worried about “corrosive vapors”, as in chlorinated plastics. It’s not clear whether that’s what’s being indicated here.
If “emits noxious fumes” was a no-go for lasering materials, we wouldn’t be cutting much of anything – leather smoke, wood smoke, acrylic fumes, etc are all noxious by strict definition. That being said, I doubt I’d try to cut carbon fiber with the Glowforge, I’ve had bad luck with cutting resins in general, stabilized woods and the like are difficult to work with. Resin-impregnated carbon fiber fabric seems like it would have similar issues.
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But worth a try at engraving. I’m thinking it will result in a shallow white/gray engrave.
If you determine you don’t want to laser the blade directly, another option could be to make a stencil and use that to paint on it. I don’t know if that would work for your intended plan but maybe? 
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