One of the main reasons I ordered a Glowforge all those years ago was to do custom marks on the blades I make.
My Glowforge arrive a few weeks ago. I ordered some thermark tape. Had a heart attack when I saw the price $180AUD a roll. But I used about 60c with on this.
I know there are cheaper ways (dry moly, wet paper towel etc) but after spending many hours making and polishing a knife, there is no room for error at the end.
Here is a practice on an old knife I have had around for years. A quick clean with IPA, stick the tape on, sort of get the blade flat with some magnets, find clip art, upload, etch then clean. About 5 minutes total.
The settings I used was Engrave, Speed 318, Full power and only one pass. Will play around a little with them, but it seemed to dig into the metal and be nice and black.
Personally I went with CerMark aerosol. It’s all so damn expensive I can’t justify buying both CerMark and TherMark to do my own comparative testing. As TherMark themselves say, CerMark is darker on stainless. Since that’s all I’ve needed to use it on so far, that’s the path I chose. Quite happy with the results I’ve gotten. Is it worth it? Well, if you have to mark metal, my opinion is, it is.
Gorgeous!! So glad your first test came out so well & proved the wait was worth it!!
And the tape is indeed an “ouch” on the initial order, but as you noted, you don’t need much for your job, and likely it’s a lot faster to apply & remove excess than the spray versions, so even less $/time per part…
