Glue Masks, Paint, Ceramic Tiles and Engraving Photographs

[matkatmusic_glowforg]

I’ve been trying to engrave photos on tiles for about 2 months now with near zero success. I had some pretty unsuccessful results using Rustoleum white spray paint and titanium dioxide/isopropyl alcohol approaches (norton white tile method). Now I’m investigating using wood glue as a mask and then applying acrylic paint/alcohol ink to the engraving. I’m using the convert to Dots setting for all of the photographs and images and I just don’t know how that’s gonna turn out when I do a flood fill with the acrylic paint and then try to clean the paint so that way the unengraved areas don’t have any paint on them. I’m really hoping to finally achieve some success with photo engraving on ceramic tile

I have been scouring the forum for months, following all the tips everyone is saying to do and am unable to get the results everyone else is getting. That’s why I’m trying this third approach where I’m literally just making a deep engraving and then filling it with black ink and letting the difference between engraved dots/unengraved areas produce the shading seen in the B&W photo.

Can anyone suggest tips or input on this approach?

[ellencadwell]

I haven’t tried engraving photos on tile yet. But I do use the wood glue method for masking on acrylic and LOVE the way it works. I just let it dry before engraving, and let the paint dry slightly before peeling off the glue. If I let the paint dry completely, it tends to pull some of the paint off. But the glue is really easy to pick off with a straight pin in the tiny areas, and in larger areas can peel off in large chunks.

I have also found that with the tiles I have (I bought a lot of six different colors from a business going out of business), that it depends on the color of my particular tiles with how well they engrave. It’s all trial and error.

[deirdrebeth]

These are the settings I used.

Just to be sure, you’re aware that it’s very binary. Either you remove the shiny coating of your tile or you don’t. The photos I’ve seen that look really great, the artist painted in all the colours and shading and they wouldn’t look anything like that if it were all one colour.

The whole thread I linked is filled with great info and examples.
My finished tile is here:

Django Reinhardt Tile

[image] I had a gift exchange at work and my recipient is a huge fan of Django Reinhardt’s music. Since a guitar was outside my budget, and he already owned all the records, I decided a copy of the memorial plaque from Reinhardt’s house in France would work perfectly! [image] I would have given up after the first few engraves if not for this thread because out of the machine it looked like this: [image] and lastly, I delivered it with a stand from @Janerlea’s pattern (Free Art / Book Stand)…

[bwente]

I imagine that a bulk of the tips and recommendations are for a CO2 laser.

Do you have an Aura or a Glowforge?

[matkatmusic_glowforg]

I have a Glowforge pro, which everyone who posted about the Norton tile method used, because the aura just came out and all of those forum posts are from a few years ago.

[evansd2]

@matkatmusic_glowforg

a few years ago

That’s the thing, tile is tile and techniques haven’t changed much. Engrave the tile, color it up, remove the excess. You can do that manually by scrubbing or via something more like a resist (wood glue, liquid latex, maybe even dish soap idk – is dish soap soluble in alcohol? Maybe alcohol ink and dish soap, but I suspect there’s water in alcohol ink, which would be bad for the soap idea)

In all the process is simple, and there are lots of ways to get there. Norton or other paint engrave is the fiddliest of them because it’s hard to be consistent in your paint layer.

[bwente]

I still can’t seem to get Titanium Dioxide to work. I either engrave and color with sharpie’s or get black tiles and spray paint them white and just take off the paint layer.

Here is where I started.

Etching Tile

I picked up some cheap ceramic tiles at Home Depot ($0.16 per 4x4 inch tile!) and played around. [MVIMG_20180324_122055] This is 225 DPI, 400 speed, full power on a Pro. After etching, I painted over it with purple Sharpie and wiped away the excess with rubbing alcohol. The ceramic under the glaze is really porous, so it soaked up the ink.

[shop]

i really wish lasertile hadn’t gone out of business. i think i have 3 or 4 of the 4x4" tiles left. but i had really good results with those.

[matkatmusic_glowforg]

@bwente

get black tiles and spray paint them white

Settings?? Where do you buy them from?

[bwente]

Testing Spray Paint Removal from Ceramic Tile

This is a piece of white ceramic tile that I sprayed with black gloss paint. The reversed an engraving to remove the black parts. Speed: 1000 Power: Full Engrave, grayscale: vary power, 340 LPI [IMG_3473] Ship of Fools - István Orosz The purpose and character of the use of this image is for nonprofit educational purposes.