Cutting Collectible Cards

I play a collectible card game that occasionally issues blank art cards as promos, and I was kind of hoping I could use the glowforge to cut shapes into them (since I definitely can’t draw anything cool on them myself…). Anyone tried this before? I’m only worried about the inks used in the printing process, but otherwise it shouldn’t have anything too worrisome, right?

Thanks in advance!

1 Like

People were talking up cards in link below.

2 Likes

I have lasered the cards linked for that playing cards thread. You take the white coating off, and it is a brown card underneath. Coloring after is tricky, because the brown will bleed through to the other side, if using a marker. (I haven’t tried the marker on an unengraved card to see if it bleeds through without the etching.

Maybe crayon or paint, but marker comes through when engraved.

Quick fyi that almost all paper playing cards are a laminate with a black-Ish glue in the middle. The glues are dark to prevent light leaking through if you hold them up in front of you.

I have a few cards laying around (ok I actually have about 3000 decks in my office at the moment) so I might give a few a quick engrave to see what happens. :grin:

3 Likes

Oh btw, if you have any plastic types of cards, don’t laser those as they are PVC based material.

Thanks for the tips - anyone got any recommendations on settings? I guess I could just fire a few extras up and see what works

I believe I used 800/10/225 to engrave.

I zapped a Magic card real quick. Cuts are super easy, I did 450/60 for the square hole. Engraves go in but the visual quality will really vary based on the card artwork and exact brand of card. On this card, the deeper engrave (1000/25/340lpi) looks nice from certain angles but kind of ratty at others. The lighter engrave (1000/15/340) looks pretty lame.

6 Likes