Etching a tile

I have a ceramic tile but have never etched one before. I saw posts on here where people use a marker after etching and wipe it off with good results. This tile is a bit porous so I’m wondering if that method will work, or if that only works on the real shiny white ceramic tiles. Any thoughts? I only have this one tile but hoping to get a test one.

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My thought is “try it and post pics”. It’s just a tile, no need to be too careful, they’re very inexpensive.

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Of course, I would normally do that, but this is one my wife was given for the 4h club. And we were only given one :slight_smile: I am asking her to see if she can get another, or at least find out where they are from. I am hesitant to try it until I know for sure she can get a second one.

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I found them at Lowes and bought 4 of them very inexpensive as I recall, I was looking for a table top

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Thanks! I will check there. I am guessing it’s Lowe’s, Menards, or Home Depot… Gotta be one of those three :slight_smile: From the picture it looks just like it… I’ll check there first!

The Marker trick will only work with a glazed surface. The laser takes the glazing off and the marker will soak in to the underlying ceramic, but easily wipe off the adjacent unlasered glazed areas…

If the tile is glazed but textured, it might or might not work depending on how deep and small the texture is.

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I did one like that and it did work, but you want to cut a lot further down than you think. I ended up with at least two passes to get far enough to break through the glaze. You also have to be very careful when wiping off the excess to avoid diluting the remaining ink. I don’t remember what I used for settings.

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Thanks, I’ll try using two passes. Did you put think on before you engraved it, or after? I am not 100% clear on the process. :slight_smile:

Good tip on Lowes. I found them there for 60 cents each. Now I got 3 test tiles for under $2! :slight_smile:

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My process was etch - scrub - Sharpie - wipe

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Sweet… thanks for your help. Will give that a try.

Looks similar to the tile I did - and yeah, etch-sharpie-wipe (I think if I had let the sharpie dry more it would have been darker, but I was scared it wouldn’t get clean

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Super helpful!! Thanks for the pictures and info on the process. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Here are the settings I use for etching tiles. speed 975/ power full/ DPI 270/1 pass . I have a Pro.

I’ve found that if I mask the tile first, it burns in some of the masking and the etching dyes darker. I’ve had success with the glossy smooth tiles and slightly bumpy titles like the one in shown in the picture. :slight_smile:


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That looks really good! Thanks for the info. I think I am going to try your settings and approach. That looks very similar to the tile I am planning to use.

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That is beautiful - what do you use to colour? Sharpies or something else?

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Just good ol’ Sharpies.

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Thanks everyone! I followed @rebecca ‘s settings and it turned out great!

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Looks like it turned out great! Thanks for sharing the project.

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Thank you so much for sharing your art and settings!! My 12 year old daughter is very excited and we are going to hang the tile in the 4h milkshake barn.

Also thanks to the others as well for chiming in. My first time doing tile- a fun learning experience. This forum is so helpful :slight_smile:

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