Hi there,
Newbie here. Has anyone tried engraving on a coated brass plate usually intended for trophy plaques? If so, have you had any success? I’m trying to engrave a photo on a piece and it keeps rubbing off when I do it. Need some help. Thank you!
Arsi
Have you tried searching using a term such as “marking brass”? I’m sure it has been asked before.
I’ll try that. Thank you!
Yeah I think I’ve seen posts about that too. I want to say trotec maybe sells some laserable brass? Like beerfaced said, search is probably your best bet.
What is the coating that comes on the brass? Are you using any other marking product along with it?
There is “coated engraving brass” meant for rotary engravers and fiber lasers, that has a lacquer coating. A co2 laser won’t mark that as is. You would need to remove that coating for a marking spray to bond with the brass.
There is also “black-coated brass for laser engraving” where you are essentially just lasering away a layer of paint to expose the brass in select areas.
Here’s a video where someone used dry moly lube to mark some blank sheet copper with a glowforge:
Note that he sands and cleans the brass, and uses multiple light coats of the spray.
…but here’s a video where someone tests a bunch of marking sprays with a co2 laser and determines that dry moly lube gave terrible performance:
I’ve had success using CerMark on brass…
Thank you for the helpful responses. I ordered CerMark and it’s supposed to get here soon. I’ll post a pic when I’ve had a chance to try it out. Since I’m trying to “mark” a photo, i’ll probably have to stick with the glowforge because my rotary engravers don’t work well on photos.
Have you looked at brass colored acrylic?
Oh that’s great! Thank you! I will definitely try it out.
Arsi
So I’ve now tried marking a brushed chrome, and polished chrome Zippo using Cermark and everything just washes off. I noticed someone mentioned they had success with Cermark using the black iPhone settings and I tested it with no luck.
It’s really frustrating. What am I missing?
Pretty hard to say what’s happening. I’ve used Laser Bond 100, which is like Cermark and I had to buy some small pieces of different metals to test on. Is chrome on the list of things on the can of Cermark that it will work on? That’s not the same as the other metals mentioned here. I’ve only successfully marked on stainless steel. I do know (at least with LaserBond) two things that directly affect a good outcome…one is shaking the can for about 3 min., which is a long time, and making sure the coating on the metal is very even and not too thick. Hope you have better luck.
There have been ‘some’ products I’ve used it on that won’t mark…as you say, just washes off. As @Xabbess says, be sure it’s clean-no oily residue from fingers, etc. I’m guessing if it all washed off it may not be a product that will work. Stainless steel definitely works…