Been asked to laser a wedding plan on a mirror, how would you guys do this, engrave from the front or back? any tips??
Cheers!!!
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Been asked to laser a wedding plan on a mirror, how would you guys do this, engrave from the front or back? any tips??
Cheers!!!
Attachment 273115
Go to Lowes or Home Depot and but a $10 pack of 12x12 mirrors. Try it both ways. It takes trials to get the power just right so you will need cheap mirrors.
I would engrave from the back then paint it with the color font they would like. You can laser it either way. Doing the back gives you a few more options.
Some (more expensive mirrors) are "mirrored" to a copper plate. Cheap mirrors engrave nicely from the back. Post a photo when your finished!
I just went thru a not-so-fun mirror escapade. 22 mirrors for family gifts, just off-the-shelf things from some store. I found that about half of them my 40w LS900 wouldn't penetrate the mirrored backing, whatever it was. However, the same mirrors in the same place lasered like gangbusters in my 25w Universal...? It had NO problem with the coatings. On a similar vein, my 25w laser refuses to make a nice white mark on black anodized aluminum, no matter how fast, slow, power settings, it doesn't matter. I light gray is all it'll get. The 40w makes much whiter marks on anodized.
What's up with that? (and sorry for the slight hijack)
Pulse frequency maybe.
I have had better luck engraving on cheap mirrors. Some of the more expensive ones had a thicker backing and one batch had a grid-like pattern in the backing that was really difficult to engrave thru. I never took pictures, but I had some nice results engraving on the back and painting with different colors such as copper metallic, gold metallic. I engraved a name on the back of one little mirror and painted the back a hot pink for a friend's teenage daughter's locker. She loved it - her name showed up in hot pink thru the mirror.
I use the mirrors from Lowes all the time. Make sure you get the ones without any adhesive on the back. Engrave from the back.
I can't think of a single reason I would engrave a mirror from the front, although there are probably a few. That's just my opinion of which you'll find many here. So follow the earlier advice and buy the cheap mirrors and do some testing.
First or second surface mirrors Matt?
cheers
Dave
I always engrave mirror from the back.
I also keep in stock both silver and gold acrylic mirror for several reasons. Acrylic mirror is lighter in weight and since you can vector cut acrylic there are more options available.
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Thanks guys, back it is then !!! not something i would normally do but its a 'favour' no doubt it will all go wrong as 'no good dead goes unpunished'