Subway tile

Someone on the Glowforge Facebook page asked if you could etch subway tiles. I have a whole pile of them.

Yes. Yes you can.

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Covered with blue painters tape 1000/Full Pro power. Spray painted with black gloss laquer, because who has time for Enamel to dry? set it in a warm dpot for 3 hrs. Removed tape, cleaned up with steel wool. I was able to get it a little cleaner, some residue I got with my fingernail. Next time I’ll grab a razor blade.
The first try was with no mask, I found it too hard to remove the extra paint.


Second attempt with masking.

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If you were going to mask and paint it, why bother with an engrave? Couldn’t a cut/score let you weed the mask and paint in a fraction of the time?

At 1000/full does it affect the surface of the tile much at all?

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It gives a significant depth, I’m guessing it removes below the glaze. The engraved surface grips the paint really well. If you just painted the glossy surface, it would be easy to scratch off.

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Ah very nice. Looks great.

Nice effect…and looks like it would be a lot more durable. :slightly_smiling_face:

Yah the steel wool didn’t even touch it, even after only a few hours of drying. Durability could be upped by using the blue high temp tape and using powdercoat.

Thanks for all of these experiments! I have a ton of these lying around in my garage. I think I’ll try to use them.