I looked through the posts, but didn’t see anything on this one. I’ve found some great glass tiles to use with the GF. They have a slightly off-white glass color, 3x6 inches, ~1/8" thick. They really work well when engraving from the back and show a detailed engraving through the glass. The back of the tile is white and it engraves a deep black.
the one on the right (back side) was done after I realized I needed to flip it
I’ve now found some 4x8 glass tiles with a dark background that I think would work well if I could completely remove the backing to allow light through the engraving. Nothing I’ve tried seems to work. Higher power doesn’t burn it off and none of the solvents I’ve tried bother it. I would guess it might be similar to a mirror backing. Anyone have a suggestion?
Hmm, someone did reverse glass tile etching, but they didn’t report any trouble. They were the standard light colored ones you find at home depot, if I recall correctly.
You got any pics of the ones that won’t engrave? Is it a metallic backing? If you flip this to BTM, we can talk about what settings you’ve tried. Interesting problem.
I did those. But it was the ones with the white paint that fuses black. I don’t know of a way to strip the remaining white paint (or whatever the coating is) from the glass back and leave the lasered image.
I haven’t tried the dark coated backed ones. No help here I’m afraid
Changed over to BTM.
I tend to use 1000/full/270 for the clear glass tiles. That’s actually the one on the left in the original photo. The one on the right was bumped up to 500/full/340 to see if there was any difference. The dark one isn’t shown, but the back looks exactly the back of the smaller one. The back has that white backing which engraves to black. I guess I could take it down to a really slow engrave, but thought I might check to see if there was any field experience out there first.
One option I’m thinking about is to mask it, engrave it and then try a sand blast. A little too much trouble, I’m thinking.
If you use the ones with the coating that turns black, a bit of overburn will blast it away entirely. (Ask me how I know this.) But the surface quality won’t be great.
Many thanks. This is what I was wondering. I used fairly aggressive settings in preliminary tests, but have not tried full afterburner. I’ll give it a shot. I might not be too concerned about surface quality if it is relatively “clear”.
