My first Laser tile

Please let me know when it’s available by the box.
I desperately need some.

:upside_down_face:

1 Like

Just picked up a box…looks great! Thanks for sharing the link. :grinning:

2 Likes

Don’t buy to much the rest of us want some.:grin:

1 Like

Be careful — the order page is not secure.

I am not saying this happened. But it is possible that the company closed and someone else picked up access to the domain and rigged an order page to be able to phish for credit card info. They have no phone # online listed to talk to a person.

I am a bit leery about entering in credit card info into a non-secure web page, especially one that has scripts that my virus checker blocked. The first person to get a shipment of tiles, be sure to raise your hand so we know it is legit.

4 Likes

You are very welcome, and I hope this batch of tiles works as well as the first batch did.

1 Like

When you have lasered the tile, do you have to wash off any un-lasered area, or is that just left in situ ?

2 Likes

Laser it and it is done, absolutely no other prep or finishing on the tile required.

2 Likes

Thanks. That has sent me back to the patent referred to, and from what I can see after a fairly cursory reading, there seems to be no great problem in recreating the glaze that the tile is coated with.
I wonder if we have any potters on the forum ?

:upside_down_face:

I’m now wondering if, instead of glazing the whole tile, it might be possible to use the GF to ‘digitally fire’ line drawings in an unfired coating of slip or glaze that has just been painted over a glass/ceramic surface.
Sort of ‘scraffito’ in reverse.

5 Likes

My wife owns a pottery studio. She’s planning on playing with some of these ideas.

(potter here) I don’t have any information whatsoever to back this up, but I highly doubt that the glowforge laser is going to get hot enough to fire anything to the quality that you’d expect or require. You need to get up to 2000+ deg F to have any sort of positive outcome, and the point of the laser is too small/fast to sustain that - plus clay shrinks as it dries/is fired so you’d also potentially run into hugely problematic warping scenarios.

HOWEVER (this is the cool part) you could probably use the laser to burn off wax resists that would let you do really intricate/accurate glaze designs that probably wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I’ll have to find someone with a kiln and try it, in fact.

9 Likes

Just fwiw, that patent looks like it describes recipes that are optimized for lasers operating in or near the visible. There’s probably a slightly different mix for the medium-IR (10.8-micron) that a CO2 laser generates.

1 Like

Wax resist etching - yes, I like that. :+1: It lets you extend what might be done.

I do believe that at the point of impact, the beam will be hot enough. After all how is it that the beam can vaporise an anodised layer, for example ?
More of a case of running the beam slowly enough for the material to absorb sufficient energy to melt. ‘Temperature exceeding that of the surface of the sun’ is often quoted about lasers. Not sure how true that is, but I’ll buy it for a thought experiment.

Consider also, that the glaze that would be used would certainly contain low temperature fluxes, like borax.
Very keen to hear the results of any experiment, if only to stop me going off at a tangent.
Got to stick to fans :upside_down_face:

Mind you… glazed inlays…mmmm ?

Lustres ?

3 Likes

Very true, but I’m thinking more in terms of pre-fired small tiles.
Might be an interesting approach to enamel on metal or even glass.
Sort of filigree decoration.

1 Like

I just got my order… I think maybe that’s a typo and it meant to say 50%. I wasn’t having any luck with 5.

1 Like

Has anyone (besides @chris1) received their order for LaserTiles? I placed an order nearly two weeks ago, received confirmation, the money was deducted from my account 11 days ago, never got a shipping notice or tracking number, then got an email saying “your order is complete”…which I don’t really understand. Their contact numbers don’t show on their website, but as fortune would have it, turns out the company is located about 20 min. from where I live. Salem Trophy Co. is the one that developed the laser tile, so if they don’t respond to my recent email, I will hunt them down in person!

6 Likes

I just got a confirmation that the order went through yesterday, so i’m not as far along in the process yet. I’ll let you know if I don’t see anything from them. (And you can sic 'em on my behalf too!) :smile:

1 Like

That’s what I was afraid ago when I posted a warning about this website 15 days ago. Hopefully, it’s just sloppiness on their part in sending out emails and fulfilling orders.

2 Likes

I just called Salem Trophy and spoke with John who said they are no longer directly involved with LaserTile, but that someone in Portland now carries them. Understandably, John did not want to get involved in the middle, so took my name and number and said he would ask the Portland place to get in touch with me. I will update here if I get any news.

4 Likes

Ugh. Hoping for the best because those tiles are awesome. Check your bank record for who took the payment.

1 Like

Interesting. I think I bought the box of 60, and I’m not sure I’m going to use them. I don’t want to commit right now to dealing with the complexity of parceling them out and shipping them around the world, but if it becomes a problem for people who really need them, I’ll figure out how to share mine.

1 Like