I am working on a tile engraving project for a Christmas present. I have not found it as easy as others have made it look.
I started with some subway tile left over from the last remodeling project.
I have a large block of color with white letters. I am having trouble removing the marker from the edge without taking off all of the color in the field.
I was trying to figure out why the edges were not crisp so I pulled out my USB microscope and took some pictures.
Just using engrave it seemed like the edges of the letter were a bit jagged. I could see where the laser stopped and started (it seems like there is a bit of a ramp up). Engraving was done full power, full speed, 450 lines.
It appears that that glaze does not give up without a fight. There is quite a bit of fracturing.
I tried scoring the outline before running the engrave. This seemed to product a sharper edge, until I hit it with the sharpie. The outline seemed to fracture the glaze even more making for a less distinct edge.
My plan is to use Acrylic paint. Perhaps the thicker paint will not bleed into these fractures?
Here are a couple more views of the regular engraving. Is it possible that I need to slow it down some more? Perhaps I am not removing enough of the glaze.
A couple more pictures because I had them.