What do you do with 90+ different colors of spray paint and a bunch of ceramic tiles… you get sidetracked from another project. Since acquiring my GF I have developed a debilitating disorder… ADHLLT, Attention Deficit Hey Let’s Laser That!
Taking a mental break from the painted canvases, I decided to play around a little more with the Norton tile method. Following are some sample tests that hopefully will be useful or mildly interesting to someone.
All tiles received two coats and were allowed to dry thoroughly before engraving. If I can find my macro lens I will get some closeups later, but each product produced a visual result. If you have any questions, please ask.
The lettering here was colored with a Sharpie. In the closeup, next below, you can see the glaze was still melted however there was no pigment to create a contrast.
As noted by @tjones, in my laser focus zeal to get these tile test posted, I transposed the power and speed settings. :My apologies if you thought about contacting CS looking for you turbo power button.
Wow, looks like flat gray primer comes out darkest. It’s interesting how the satin red keeps a pink hue. And I like the chalkboard one before cleaning… Keep thinking you are playing one of those brain games where they say the letters are the same color on both sides and that is just the contrast playing tricks on me.
Thanks for testing, now I know which one I’ll try for this method.
All of the “colored” paints displayed a small amount of color that was more obvious after cleaning. This to me indicates the pigment from the dissolved paint is staining the engraving. Under magnification you can see gaps in the melted glaze.
I might have missed something, or maybe I am just having a dumb moment. 250 power? I thought power just went from 0 to 100 to Full. Did you mean 30 power and 250 speed? Or do I need to go watch the video again?
Thank you for doing the research to see what the different paints produced. I was disappointed in my attempts because they were not as dark as I would have liked. Your work will help and inspire lots of people, so thanks again.
I don’t have the means to try this myself at the moment but if you get 1-50,000 parts cobalt mixed into the molten glaze it would be noticeably blue, over 1-1000 probably black. A cobalt blue artist’s color would likely have at least some. There is no other chemical nearly as strong a colorant.
A cobalt frit glaze in a gum binder I bet would work wonders any other frit would likely work also as the chemicals would be bound into the glass and rarely as high as 100ppm.
Double check for lead content that could be high enough to be a problem. There are other frits that are a lot more expensive, and I was just realizing that could be why.
:My apologies if you thought about contacting CS looking for you turbo power button.
any other frit would likely work also as the chemicals would be bound into the glass and rarely as high as 100ppm.