Passes at Glass

A couple of firsts today… First attempt to engrave glass and first job without the crumb tray.

The test article is a $2 glass bottle from Hobby Lobby. After measuring it, I propped it up on a piece of cardboard to get into focus range, and took a complete swag at the settings…


One side I coated with a bit of dish soap, the other I left unprotected. Can’t really tell the difference.

These were svg vector engraves. Next attempt will be raster engraves with 4 “colors.”

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Love it! Let the experimentation begin! (Exactly what I did with those egg shells…“Ehhhh!..that looks about right.”) :smile:

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I’m really looking forward to having a wider dynamic range of power settings, too… :sunglasses:

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It looks great! You can get glass paints (translucent or opaque) and color the kitty in–that would be cute!

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Nice!
In close up on the second picture it looks like the fractured surface could almost be picked out. Reminds me of tempered fracture pattern. I wonder if a pigment might be carried into/between the pieces by capillary action and secure them? A transparent airbrush paint would let the light play in the fracture pattern.
Do you recall the settings? That;s one thing I’m learning, to take notes. After three tries I get what I’m after, but neglect to write down the settings… :confounded:
I guess not that big a deal since the software is still evolving.

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This was my second attempt on putting graduations on a borosilicate (90% positive about this material) tube (from Airpot Corp). First attempt cracked the glass because of too high laser power (at last that’s my assumption). I don’t remember settings (plus it was on a 40W CO2 Eplilog). Had this on my phone and wanted to share earlier but this post reminded me to start it!

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Sure, the settings were 10/150/270, focus 0.05"

I’m trying to get in the habit of saving a screenshot with the finished print, including the GFUI settings, then saving them in Evernote. Didn’t do it in this case (naturally)…

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That’s brilliant! I’ve been taking furious notes on my giant desk pad calendar, but it’s now so full/cluttered that it’s hard to tell where one experiment stops and the next one starts. Your method is far more organized :wink:

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Those are too cute :smile:
Love it!

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This is one of the things I am interested in doing.

I wonder what actually determines the line width. It looks a good bit wider than the beam assuming it was focused. It seems like the glass fractures into little flakes and their size determines the width.

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Fantastic! Another awesome test

You could probably play with speed and power to see if you get different widths/textures.

Note, I have no experience. But I’ve read an awful lot over the past year and a half about lasering all sorts of things. And glass was of interest to me. That said…

As I understand it, it’s to help prevent shattering, not to affect the result. Instead of cardboard underneath to focus, might try a paper towel (damp with water or soap) on the surface itself.

Yep! It does.

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Needed a quick gift, so I loaded up a stencil SVG and set my laser to engrave…

I forgot to coat the glass first and ended up with a “bubble” of glass leaf over the engraved area. Disintegrated as soon as I touched the bottle. Wish I’d taken a picture first… :smirk:

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Cool!

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That’s really awesome!

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Looks great!

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What were you going to coat the glass with?

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Thin coating of dish soap.

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