Hi!
I am interested in painting mdf boards before cutting it in my Glowforge. The piece (8-layered 11-inch- mandala) is intricate and a pain to paint afterwards (which I’m currently doing but it’s driving me nuts). I’m using acrylic craft paints (Folkart) and 3 of the paints I planned on using say “metallic” on the label. Would that make it unsafe in the Glowforge? I can’t find a list of ingredients online. Does anyone know enough about paint to know the ingredients that make this metallic? Or has anyone (and their machine) survived lasering it?
Thanks!
I cut painted materials all the time, and very often with metallic colors - just regular consumer spray stuff like krylon and rustoleum. Never given it a second’s thought…
Edited to add - I do a lot of engraving on metallic painted surfaces. For large (pass-thru) pieces I generally use hardboard, a cheap version of MDF, from the big-box store, as it’s dirt cheap and works fine. I have often painted it first, and typically use metallics.
This is one example - I painted the sheet of hardboard ,with white then silver metallic, before lightly engraving and cutting. It’s about 4’ long (wide), and obviously used the passthru to engrave/cut it.
(skyline of Johannesburg, South Africa, where I grew up and had this view from our home as we lived on the crest of a hill due-East of the city…)
Hey welcome to the forum! As @eflyguy mentioned generally it’s just fine to engrave on painted surfaces.
@shogun has lots of advice here, he does a lot of engraving on paint.
Great!! Thank you so much!! Looking forward to a much easier day of painting tomorrow 
Share your creation with us when you’re done!
