I am getting inconsistent burn
marks when I am engraving, any Idea why ?
Welcome to the forum.
It is hard for me to see what inconsistency you refer to until you clean the engraved area. As an engrave occurs, the residue, soot and smoke are blown forward by the air assist fan in an uneven manner. If the depth of the engrave was irregular, that would be a problem, but what I see here is just different parts of the wood reacting to the laser in a little different way. What wood is that, and do you think you see the same pattern on other woods?
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1- thanks for your reply.
2- this is proofgrade plywood.
3- I think this will make it clearer.
4- I got similar differences on proof grade maple hardwood and thick paper
So now my question is about the file. Do you experience similar inconsistencies when engraving the Gift of Good Measure, or a known file. What is the fill in your file - is it a solid color or gradient. What are your engrave settings? Are you using proofgrade settings - which ones? Would you consider sharing your file so someone could take a look?
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When the laser engraves, it always starts at the front of the design and moves backwards. Meanwhile, the air assist from the fan blows the engraving smoke forward to keep from setting fire to the material. There is always a residue consisting of vaporized glues, resins and char that will be deposited on the earliest engrave areas. The deeper you are engraving, the worse it is.
You can either clean it off (I’ll sometimes use a q-tip dipped in vinegar or alcohol), or run a second low power engrave to burn the junk off. Either method works fine.
What you’re seeing there is completely normal, and a fairly mild case of it.
Keeping the engrave shallow reduces the effect. But you can see it on your masking, where a lot of it gets deposited.
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