Nylon? Engrave? Score?

Hi all,

Has anyone used their GF with nylon. Specifically, with nylon watch bands? From what I know, you can use the GF to cut nylon, but I’m looking for info about engraving/scoring.

Thanks team!

Hey welcome.

Generally searching for stuff on the forum is a good first step, this was one of the results when I just searched for “nylon”. You’re right that most of the posts seem to talk about cutting, but this one seems to be what you need.

BTW, since this is your first post, you might like this:

Might answer some questions you don’t even know you have yet :slight_smile:

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I did read this post and about 14 other posts. This post and many others are specific to the nylon stitching on leather bands. Please see their posted pic for details. Other posts are about cutting nylon for dog leads etc.

I’m specifically asking about engraving on FULL nylon bands.

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Honestly just try it. Nylon is melty, you know that if you read all the posts. I suspect your results will not be great, you could have tried it and known for sure ten times over by now :slight_smile:

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Online communications are tricky. My intent was not to shut you down, it was to say that I think you might be in uncharted territory from what I’ve seen here and that I think testing it out is your best bet. If you do test it out and post your results you’d be doing us all a favor.

Apologies that I made you feel shut down in any way. I’m happy to see new users pushing the boundaries, I would never want to make you feel unwelcome.

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I didn’t see any shutting down. @evansd2 gave you quite a bit of useful/helpful information. “Try it and see” is really the best advice any of us could give; other people’s settings really aren’t all that useful, at the end of the day, unless you happen to be working on the EXACT same item they had.

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google image search does not bring up any engraved nylon watch bands. If it worked well, I would expect to see a multitude of offerings for sale.

Universal Lasers has this to say on the subject:

Laser Engraving of Textiles and Fabrics
Laser engraving is most effective for non-woven fabrics (e.g. felt) or fabrics with a pile (e.g. fleece). Woven fabrics are not usually engraved because the engraving process would destroy the weave, causing the fabric to unravel.

Laser Marking of Textiles and Fabrics
Certain fabrics change color or hue when exposed to a CO2 laser beam. When the surface appearance changes without any material being removed, the process is termed laser marking. Laser marking can be used to produce visible patterns and designs on the fabric surface.

So, while it seems that engraving may not be the best method for a woven nylon fabric watchband, there is a possibility that it could work, or that you could mark the nylon without engraving it. The next step, or course, would be to try it for yourself and see how your material reacts.

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Nylon, like polyethylene and polypropylene, melt at a very low temp. I have tried them with absolutely no success. Because of the low melting temps, the material just flows back on itself and hardens quickly. They also burn very easily and are a significant fire hazard. I do not recommend any of them.

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