Hello there Glowforge Community!
Does anyone know if I can engrave Brass or Nickel plated buckles with the Glowforge?
I want to add my dog’s name and our phone number to his collar buckles.
I’ve seen that others have used Cermark or Dry Moly Lube to leave a deposit on the metals, but wanted to see if it was even possible to leave a mark without the use of those.
Thanks in advance!
I think there was some talk of mustard. Haven’t done any metal engraving myself – yet!
CO2 lasers are not setup to mark metal without some of the aforementioned compounds applied to them. Also, if you search the information in many discussions here, any shiny plated items without a coating would risk a reflection that can damage your machine.
Only if they’re shiny in the right wavelength, actually. Like copper. 
Anodized aluminum buckled and tags are great alternatives. Check out chewbarka, they carry a lot of stuff like this.