I’ve done a fair amount of engraving on woods like maple, cherry, and red oak. However, I’ve had mixed success cleaning the char out of the engravings using things like a toothbrush, Fast Orange, denatured alcohol, etc. Warping is always a danger, and the long and short of it is that I’d like to try something that doesn’t involve using liquid on my pieces.
I’ve seen mentions in other posts about doing the standard slow pass at high power for the engraving, then a faster, low-power pass to vaporize some of the char without creating more. However, I can’t find any suggestions for specific settings. If any of you use secondary fast cleaning passes on your own wood engravings, could you please share whatever successful settings you’ve used? Any tips would be appreciated.
P.S.: I’m not doing any 3-D work here. Just basic flat engraving, anywhere from 900 to 750 speed at full power depending on the type of wood, 270 lpi (Glowforge Basic model).