Masking tape for engraving gradient images

[burkej]

Hello I was wondering what the group think is on engraving gradient images like photos…i have projects that have cut, scored and engraved elements…how do you all do these within a single project???many times the gradient images are not that good…as a teacher i dont have time to do each technique as a separate prepared step…peace

[evansd2]

Photo preparation is a whole art.

Check out #9:

Common problems/questions

Hello! You’ve been referred to this post because you have a common problem or question. Check out the list below to see what this post can do for you. Just click on a topic that interests you.

1: I'm new to Glowforge and really have no idea where to start

Hey, welcome to the forum! Glowforge has a getting started page, it’s definitely worth your time: <a href="https://support.glowforge.com/hc/en-us/sections/11792517736475-Design-and-Print-Tutorials">https://support.glowf…

[burkej]

I have no problem with photo prep…i have issues with gradients AND masking…my non masked photos turn out great…what i have are issues when a project has all three types of laser use…i need the masking but also dont need the masking…what are people doing about this???peace

[evansd2]

Oh right, masking doesn’t do well with vary power/3d engrave. The issue is that the masking eats up the laser energy for the lower end of the power scale. You can offset that by using the minimum power setting, but tbh it doesn’t work too well. My best suggestion is not to mask fine engraves like that. There are several techniques for cleaning unwanted smoke marks from engraves, that’s what I’d be doing. and have done:

Mucha more engraving

Two Alphonse Mucha pieces: [image] SVG for anyone who wants to give it a shot: moet_cut.zip (1.9 MB) Ok so I hit it with different lighting and it really pops: [Lighting matters] (sorry, uploading the video directly just wouldn’t work.)

One last engrave for the evening

I had a thought that Alphonse Mucha’s work would engrave well, he did lots of art nouveau posters. So I googled for one of his paintings: [image] A quick test, cropped and adjusted the curve to make it a decent candidate for engraving — maybe all of 5 minutes to get it set up: [image] [image] Not to get into settings too much here but, on Baltic, with “vary power” engrave mode. It’s amazing what you can do so quickly with the Glowforge.

Electricity as the Dominant Force in the World

Before we begin: Currency Image Use – Reproducing Color Illustrations of U.S. Currency Federal law permits color illustrations of U.S. currency only under the following conditions: the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated; the illustration is one-sided; and all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices and any other…

You can get definitely good results this way.

@shogun and I worked together before he had his Glowforge, and all of these were done on maple hardwood and unmasked, then cleaned.

Glowforge and CNC collaboration coffee table

My buddy @shogun is making a coffee table, and enlisted me. He’s going to CNC pockets into a table and insert my engravings. He’s a big music lover so he chose a wide variety of album covers. Everything is engraved in solid maple that he ripped and planed to 1/8” thick. Each tile is 4.3” square, and took roughly 30 mins to engrave (high lpi, you pay the price for darker engraves). You can do the math but it came out to roughly 6.5 years of engrave time. [image] [image] (Fleetwood Mac is out…

[burkej]

thanks!!! i will check these out…peace

[PhxFrge]

If you’re working with wood, I would skip the masking. Usually a very light sanding will take care of the soot, and the whole process is less time consuming.

[burkej]

seems like a spray coating that is water soluble would be great…engrave then wipe with a damp sponge…peace

[deirdrebeth]

You could also set the engraving as the first step, let it finish, then open the lid, add the masking, and then hit go on the remaining steps (setting the engrave step to Ignore)…

[burkej]

I will try this but with 196 student projects every other day on my 3 machines opening the lids will be time consuming…i dont print singles unfortunately very often…peace