About a month into our new GlowForge Pro and have a few Questions. Everything has been going pretty good. I am having an issue with Black Granite, have ruined 4 pieces so far. Bought them from LaserSketch. Just can’t seem to get the setting right. Doing something wrong.
Wood seems to be going good, except the mess. If someone could tell me how to clean under the tube, it would be much appreciated. I’ve been reading many posts and decided it was time to chime in also. Glad to be part of the GlowForge family and we love our GlowForge. Did this on a maple ply of two Malamutes. Came out pretty good. Once again, suggestions, tips are appreciated.
it looks to me like the granite could use the image inverted and a contrast element such as acrylic paint applied before removing the masking. The original image might help the helpful glowfolk make recommendations. The etch looks good just not enough contrast on the dark granite.
Typically, on a light material that engraves darker (the wood), you’ll want to keep the image with normal coloration. For material that will engrave lighter (like the granite), you’ll want to invert the image.
Welcome!
The Granite looks pretty good considering, I would never have taken it for granite. @ihermit2 is correct I think that some thinking is needed about foreground and background and then some means of getting better contrast, As have had an issue with loose dark tiles a few have made their way to the laser before re-installing and you can see here the differences …
The white is spray acrylic and then a spray of phosphorescent spray that is almost invisible but if there is a strong light and then dark it glows brightly.
here is the original picture. I was using 4% power, 800 speed and 270 DPI on the Black Granite. I also have a similar of Clint Eastwood, same mottled results. I’ve tried inverting, same thing. positive it’s my setting. Maybe too high DPI?? I’m trying to get this figured out so I can give Mom an Engraving on the Black Granite of Dad for Christmas. Maybe just too difficult of a design?? Here’s the original.
you can see where i was adjusting the settings, but still didn’t get the results I was hoping for.
Also, my other burning question is about cleaning the residue Under the tube. I’m a little OCD about it, so, LOL!! How do you guys do that. I’m so nervous that I’ll damage it. Please help. Thanks
You could just let it all build up there without loss of operability, however an almost invisible speck on the lenses or mirrors can severely lower the effectiveness, and the three fans (two on the head, and the exhaust) can also have bad news if they build up gunk from burning wood. If you are just etching stone I would expect that there would be hardly any gunk build up even with heavy use.
In engraving stone you may want to use the convert to dots and play with lowering the number of dots with the slider object then a 500speed @ full power should deepen the dots and the white paint filling each dot only and wiped off the rest could give you the the results you are looking for and by actually increasing the LPI to 450 each dot will also be deeper rather than more dots. As you can see from the tiles above the paint makes quite a difference.
I can really see the image trying to come through. But given the small difference between darkest and lightest on the material. I think a lot is going to depend on the composition of the granite and how it is finished. Did LaserSketch have any suggested settings?
also it can be done at least on some black tiles.
Maybe compare your settings to those in this thread: Engraving Black Granite tile
I am afraid the composition of your granite is coming a lot closer to @rbtdanforth but coming from laserSketch and comparing to their examples it really looks like you should have better results.
I want to thank everyone for their help. Nice to be part of a group that isn’t afraid to share information. The lady was very happy with the Malamutes. Framed it up and wola!! Have to admit I was a little nervous when I bought the GlowForge. Never engraved anything before. Struggled with design for a bit but seem to have it ok now thanks to all the wonderful people on this forum so freely and willing to help. We’re retired and needed to bring in extra income, this was the ticket. My wife does Dye-Sublimation, I do the engraving. We’ll see how being around each other 24/7 goes, LOL!!! Once again thank you all.
Can I put a link for our Etsy store here or will I get Kicked off for posting our store.
