Counterintuitive to me. If Navy gets white and Dove gets light toast, intuitively I’d expect Black to reveal white or maybe be a gray off-white but not a darker toasty brown than Dove. Toast/brown suggests it burned through the top layer and was now burning the white core. So more brown suggests more energy hitting the core. The results across 2 dark colors and a light color that doesn’t seem like a predictable pattern. If the black showing brown makes sense, then the Navy should show toast and the dove show white. Or vice versa. Since it doesn’t do that I concluded I needed to test each color instead of relying on heuristics to make a setting I was reasonably certain would work.
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See for me, you said black seemed to toast the paper more, I figured the black layer sucked up more laser energy and dumped it into the paper, hence getting a darker color. Hard to say, it may be more about residues left by the various inks or something too.
I think – as usual – there’s no substitute for testing, so this is yet another data point to reinforce that opinion.
This is gorgeous!!! And when I clicked on your amazon cardstock link - lo and behold I bought some awhile back too - and still have some! When I get to trying this out, I’ll be sure to check in with you as to settings… will be awhile though as I have loads to do on my to do list.
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Earned a bookmark, such nice results!
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I did a stacked mat board plaque for a reunion with 6 or 7 layers and I was trying to match the top color with the main object in that color (navy for the sailor’s pea coat, black for the submarine, aqua-green for the water, dove for the sky, etc). The exposed inner core provided accent color or shading to provide even more depth.
I did 30 or 40 test swatches if I recall. Then made 60 of the plaques (5x7 and 10x14 sized) 
The effects carried through even when resized.
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This is just beautiful! I mean, they all are - but this looks just…wow.
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That’s incredible. It never would have crossed my mind to engrave away the outer color!
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Credit where it is due, I learned it here. Previously:
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I have engraved cardstock in the past, but the reverse engrave is something I hadn’t considered.
Ordered! Thanks so much. This is great. I’m making a YouTube video this week on engraving everything from wood, plastic, metal, textiles, paper, etc… I’d love to include double-sided cardstock to the mix - I’ll give you a shout out!
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Definitely include tile in that mix, they look so great.
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Definitely! I’ve been working with tile, slate, marble and a few different types of stone. Cermark makes an etching spray that works pretty well (if you’re not paint filling it). The video was originally going to be a relatively simple one - but one thing led to another and now it’s growing to include dozens of materials. haha! The double-sided cardstock will certainly inspire others - I teach digital fabrication at a college and my students will love working with the cardstock. Thanks again!
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Anodized aluminum too. Looks so good.
Yes, anodized aluminum looks awesome! I’m also working with stainless steel, copper, titanium, brass and chrome. I’m thinking that maybe we should spin this off in a separate thread… I’m sure that others might have some ideas - or something they’d like to see.
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Did you ever post it? That sounds cool.
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Yeah it’s here somewhere. I also did a couple hundred tiles for coaster sets - 4 different designs so everyone could have a coaster takeaway but also be able to add another 3 to make a set. I’ll do a search
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Well I guess I’m going to have to order some cardstock! Looks amazing! May have to message you about settings though 
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I bought that card stock from Joanne Fabrics after reading your post! Did you actually glue together two separate pieces and then engrave? Or did you find a way to lightly engrave the first color off of the top layer of the double-sided card stock to reveal the second color? I’ve been trying to the latter with no luck for over an hour now. ha! I’m starting to think that those are two separate pieces…
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Just engraved it off.
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There are quite a few cardstock settings in the Beyond the Manual section of the forum. What settings are you using and what problems are you having? Perhaps you can post a picture of what your results are.
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