I was into pour art/pour painting before I fell in love with Glowforge. I would love to do something with all the painted canvases I have just collecting dust and taking up space. Can I print/cut them in Glowforge? I’d like to cut out cosmetic bags/coin purses from them to sell at craft fairs.
Most of the canvases are cotton duck and the paint is just cheap acrylic paint, glue all and water. Some have silicone or floetrol mixed in the paint to thin it out…hence pour paint/pour art. Anything I should watch for? Will canvas catch fire? The ones I’m most worried about are the ones with Floetrol on them. I included a sample pic of my pour art in question. This one has cheap metalic paints, glue all, floetrol, and water. Obviously I will take the canvas off the frame =) Any advice is appreciated.
It’s a cool idea! I think it would make great purses and such. Unfortunately I don’t know if it’s safe to do in your Glowforge or not. Your starting point is going to be checking out the MSDS (material safety data sheet, sometimes also called SDS) for each component. Pay particular attention to products of combustion, and if HCl is produced, that’s a particular no-no from a corrosion as well as health perspective. Other things to avoid are HCN (cyanide gas) as well as formaldehyde. And since we are talking about non Proofgrade safety, I’m moving this topic to Beyond The Manual.
Hi, for the canvas itself, it should be OK–just start with very low power, as you really just want to go thru the paint & gesso/coating layer, not the fibers themselves (else you do risk the canvas itself failing!).
But for the paints/coatings, the silicone and floetrol are top on the list to verify OK per @cynd11 advice!
The others have it covered as far as figuring out of laser safe but I’m just wondering how it will look lasered. I’d guesstimate if might end up having some ugly staining/residue, but I might be wrong. It’ll be interesting to see what it looks like if you’re able to do it.
