Have any of the lucky Laser Pros (those who already have a laser) tried this product? Looks interesting as an alternative to paint, although not nearly as cost effective. It might be especially good for loose grained woods that would bleed with painting.
Web site is a little weak, and I’m surprised that I couldn’t find any You Tube videos or reviews on the product. That makes me wonder about how well it works. Their photo of projects looks good, though. Especially multi color items. I’d imagine that each color requires two passes. One to engrave, then one to color. The camera alignment feature on the Glowforge would make this pretty easy to do.
I did a little piece for a birthday present recently where the wood was already stained, and lasering took off that stain leaving a slightly lighter shade of wood underneath. It was a fairly easy fix in this case to take a squeegee with paint on it and run it across the piece. The lower lasered areas would retain the paint while the smooth and finished top let it slide right off. It did catch in some of the grain in a few places, but a wet rag cleaned that up rather quickly. It came out looking pretty good for a first attempt. The recipient loved it
Thats exactly what I was thinking…I have lots of near empty laser printer cartridges hanging around the office…guess thats what I’m doing tomorrow evening on my playtime with my lasers:grinning:
The powder coating that I’ve done requires the powder to be applied, then it needs to go into an oven for a while to “flow out” (change from the powdery appearance to a liquidy appearance) then it needs to continue baking to cure. Almost everything from Eastwood (everything I’ve seen, except the clear powders) needs to bake at 450º F to flow out and then continue baking for 20 minutes at 400º to cure. Powders from other companies need different flow out/cure temps/times.
I attempted to change some powder coat from powder to liquid using my laser cutter. The results were pretty bad (not nearly as good as the results achieved by the person that @smcgathyfay linked to). The powder just pilled up and burned without adhering much at all. I was trying to coat aluminum though, maybe the reflective nature of the aluminum makes it trickier. Also, I tried it shortly after getting my laser cutter so maybe I made a rookie mistake or something. I also tried burning off cured powder coat, but that didn’t really work either. My laser is 30 watts, so maybe it didn’t have the necessary power. Also possible is that once the cured powder got thin enough that it became transparent, the aluminum underneath just reflected the laser away, preventing it from heating up enough to vaporize.
Toner is an interesting idea. It’s designed to cure very quickly so might work a lot better.
Sorry to hear this isn’t working. I’m hoping to try it as a fill on engraved wood or acrylic. Maybe the rastered surface area of these materials will hold the material better.
I’m surprised the lasering off of cured powder coat didn’t work. Maybe it is a power issue, or multiple passes are needed. Here’s a video of it being done on a powder coated Zippo. Doesn’t say the laser power, but they did multiple passes on it. There a lot of other powder coating removal videos out there. Most look like pretty powerful lasers.
It seems like the rastered surface could indeed help.
I thought I had seen powder coat being removed with a laser as well, but I don’t recall any specific videos. That particular video of the Zippo shows a fiber laser, which produces a different wavelength than CO2 lasers like mine and what will be in the Glowforge. Fiber lasers can “mark” some metals, so I’d guess they’re burning through the powder completely and then engraving the surface of the metal underneath a little bit too.
Maybe more powder coat talk should be put into its own thread?
For now I just edited the topic title. All of this thread talks about attempting to mark with coloring powders, it’s all somewhat applicable, although most discussion may now be on actual powder coating rather than other types of marking.
This is before cleaning.
Etched on 30 wt
Settings right to left
10% pwr. 100 speed
7% pwr. 100 speed
5% pwr. 100 speed
3% pwr. 100 speed
1% pwr. 100 speed
I’ll post some photos or videos when done.
