What about Flooring?

I was reminded that the last room in our house to be remodeled is the bathroom. That has me thinking about other uses for the Laser. If I CAD the dimensions of the floor and overlay a mosaic pattern intended for multi materials etc…, I would like to find out the best types of materials to be used as flooring. I know some of the peel and stick flooring has me nervous with the adhesives but perhaps there are other materials available that would look nice and contrast well.

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Stay clear of the peel and stick flooring ive had nothing but trouble with it they tend to move in high traffic aeras and if there is under floor heating or say a forced air heating duct under thr floor it just compounds the problems.

I dont see why you couldent get a plain tile and etch the surface it will etch glass and the enamels on the tiles are just that.

That is a really good idea you had there never would have thought of it.

Granite and marble etch amazingly well. I think there’s a picture of a random granite tile we etched with our old logo floating around somewhere.

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My holiday home’s bathroom has pebbles grouted in. Could have some fun engraving those.

Glass pebbles anyone? Or some good old fashioned glass or ceramic small tiles. I heard you may be able to engrave score makes and snap… To make your own shapes but that might be a tad sharp!

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Thanks for the inspiration all! I will steer away from peel and stick for sure. I used a floating porcelain system in the kitchen but I really want to cut vs engrave so I’m thinking I will experiment with a few flooring samples (maybe a tight wood grain with contrasting colors and find something moisture resistant or coat the wood floor with coating of some type) I googled “Laser cut flooring” and saw some incredible inlay photos I could do on a small scale bathroom. I know the overall design will be much larger than the Glowforge bed, but the beauty of computer design is I really only need to make sure the individual cuts fit inside.

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From when I first learned about it, I planned on using my glowforge to engrave a yet TBD design over tile to make a back splash in the kitchen. But between the “yet TBD design” not being close to determined and other priorities it will be a while.

Awesome idea @caribis2 The way I look at it, anyone can go to the big box store and by square tiles or flooring systems for floor or back splash but if you paid a contractor to make intricate cuts or designs, then your talking thousands of dollars. With the Glowforge, you are just out the cost of the GF plus materials. Sell your home in a few years and you will get the value of the GF back in just all the custom laser trim, built-ins etc… I think for the first few months, the only action my table saw will see is just making materials small enough to fit in the laser!

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You might consider real linoleum sheeting. I’m pretty sure it’s made from natural materials. A brand that I’ve used for flooring is Marmoleum and they even have an msds for the product. I have some scraps that I’m going to try and cut once I get my GF.

I think what scott means by “real Linoleum” is that it is safe to cut/engrave linoleum(Lino) but only if it is the ‘real’ traditional lino made from the oil not the modern stuff that gets sold quite a lot of places still called Lino but is actually made of PVC(those crafty buggers, don’t they know we are going to laser cut it…)

I’ll have to look at Linoleum. I’ve heard they make some with extremely high res or realistic textures on the surface. I may have to apply a really strong adhesive on the subfloor first to keep any smaller inlay cut seams together. good points. I’ll do some more research as that project get’s closer.

Real linoleum is laser-safe and really great for engraving:

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Interested in this as well. My family is building a new house and I would like to engrave our cattle brand in one of the floors tile, say a 4 foot by 4 foot area made with 16 ( 1’ x 1’ ) tiles… multiple tiles etched to make up 1 larger image.

I was thinking linoleum marquetry for something like this. Cut the floor tiles with the blanks and cut the different colored inlays from other tiles. Glue down. I walked on many marble inlay floors when I lived in Italy and it’s something i dreamed of. Been sourcing real linoleum from natural materials to get this effect. The GF will be perfect for this instead of utility knife or scroll saw.

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