I am engraving some cribbage boards. My settings are 535/75 270lpi.
My question is am I better off going cross grain or with the grain?
I ask, because even at 270 lpi, going with the grain still looks a bit streaky.
What kind of hardwood? Can you share a photo of the streaks you don’t like?
1 Like
The boards are about .79" thick. I usually make them out of Cherry, Hickory, Red Elm, Walnut and Hard Maple. I notice the lines on the Hickory boards. It’s not really thaat bad, I was just asking if there was a best pratice when cutting actual hardwood and not ply.
Have you tried going cross grain? Only one way to know for sure.
Cross grain can make the piece more likely to break - but that really depends on exactly what/how you’re engraving. To minimize grain lines you can also cut at an angle, or try a defocused engrave as a last pass. Lots of things to try - not a lot of 100% answers!
By itself 270 LPI is pretty loose and 75 very light. Full power and high LPI will cause the differences in the grain or the difference of the power of each pass (strongest in the middle least between) there gets to be a point when you can’t go fast enough to make up for the extra depth the cut makes but I always try to stay with full power.