Hi all…hoping to get a little help…
I am trying to engrave on acrylic painted birchwood and just cant seem to get the engraving to come out clean and clear. I am using craft smart acrylic paint…I have tried masking and unmasked. Just cant get consistent results. The setting that “kinda” looks best is 900/60, but again, its just not very consistent. Any tips regarding settings or anything I can do to pin this down would be greatly appreciated!
Unless your acrylic paint is VERY thick I’d suggest using the PG settings for Red Oak as it’s almost the same hardness on the Janka scale
In general most of the Engrave settings are full speed and power and you adjust by messing with the LPI - some are much slower with a tiny amount of power to compensate.
There is an engraving test you can use, but start with the PG settings first.
It took me a few minutes to figure out you used acrylic paint on a birch plank.
So is the problem an even depth in the wood? Or are you trying to remove the paint and not touch the wood? As regards the masking, that is for smoke protection. Your masking is probably very consistent and shouldn’t affect the engrave. I’ve engraved through acrylic paint before, but iirc only painted mdf/draftboard.
If the depth of engrave is inconsistent then it may be the material and not the wood. I would try changing up your LPI. Wood often does best with a low LPI. Start at 270 and go down before going up. If the problem is banding try a second engrave with a low power and different LPI.
I’ve done a lot of engraving onto painted wood. I can’t figure out from your description what your problem is. The machine will engrave right through the paint as if it’s not there, leaving a nice painted surface in the unengraved areas. If that’s not your issue, then you might want to include a pic and a better description.