Good morning! My soon to be daughter in law wants me to engrave gold compact mirrors for her bridesmaids gift at their wedding. I have an aura. Is this even possible? I am fairly new and am hopeful someone can help me. Tia!
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The Aura cannot engrave glass or mirrors. It can, however, engrave the coating on the back of mirrors. Can you share a photo of the item you wish to engrave?
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If the mirrors are acrylic rather than glass, thereâs a possibility! Hopefully you can get one to test on.
If it turns out theyâre glass and you canât get them out of the compact to engrave the back like @dklgood mentioned, maybe you could create an insert?
FYI, Iâm moving your post to the Community Support section, as this is where you come to post the pictures when youâre done! 
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It is difficult to say whether or not you can engrave away the âgoldâ on this item to reveal whatever is underneath. The item description doesnât help: ăHIGH QUALITY!ă- The Pocket Mirror for Purse made of high-quality metal material. The Aura cannot engrave metal, but it can ablate some coatings applied to metal.
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I know she wants it engraved but Aura will not do that the Aura can not do metal. I just bought my Aura a month ago and wish I did more research. The 6k Glowforge can do that. You might opt to do a permanent vinyl letter. Just a suggestion.
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Just to be clear, the bigger Glowforges cannot engrave metal either.
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Neither can do it on its own, but there are marking materials you can use that the laser will fuse to the surface.
The danger with the compact is if the surface is a thin layer of gold paint on pot metal 
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Welcome to the forum.
We are glad you have found your way to this community that is filled with lots of helpful information. As others have noted, the performance printers cannot engrave metal, but as I noted in my first response to this user, both the Aura and Performance printers can burn away some coatings from metal (usually aluminum). Your Aura can âengraveâ some aluminum items as well as titanium.
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Like others have said, the Glowforge lasers canât actually engrave on metal. However, I have engraved aluminum dog tags. The tags I get have a colored coating on them, and my spark is able to engrave through the color coating to expose the silver of the aluminum. The darker, the color, the better it looks with more contrast between the color coating and the aluminum.
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Like others have said testing one would be your best bet
While searching Amazon for more info on yours I also found this one that says itâs laser friendly but not quite sure what they mean.
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LOL! Iâm presuming theyâre somehow required to post this image cuz otherwiseâŚ
In one of the reviews they said they engraved the exterior with an xTool laser. No pictures though.
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Thank you I did not know that.
Just to clarify the point that several have made. I engraved this metal tin with my Aura:
Of course, it didnât engrave the metal, it removed the black coating. But if you can get very good results under the right conditions. In this case, black is very compatible with the diode lasers, and ablating it reveals a high contrast image.
In the case of the gold colored mirror, you really have three problems:
- Will the Aura cleanly remove the gold (it doesnât do well with light colors)?
- Whatâs under the paint and what will it look like?
- Safety of putting unknown materials in the laser
If I had to bet on it, I donât think it would work well, itâs just too light. You could spend the $5 to find out, if you are willing to take a chance on the safety issue. Me, Iâd try to talk them into a different color first, red or black or something, and then do the experiment.
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