Brass and cermark

[Ian Wilson (AUST)]

I have a nice little job to do......a 2 foot x 6 inch Brass plate. Cleaned it up with Brasso, applied Cermark, left it to dry, engraved at same settings as Stainless steel...........went to wash off cermark and etching washed off too.

I've had no problems with S/Steel before and was hoping Brass would be the same.

Did I do anything wrong?

Regards from down under.

Ian:o

[Stephen Kane]

I have had similar results here. My understanding is that it is critical to get the 'right' grade of brass. However i have not yet established what that is!


Stephen

[Bryan Jater]

You will need to hit the brass much harder than stainless to get a good mark. I would use 10%sp 100% power on a 35 watt Epilog Mini 24 to mark brass. If the brass has any laquer or varnish on the process wont work though.

[Frank Corker]

Bryan is right, I have had a good mark on brass, but it is a much slower process and you also need to be aware of heat distortion. Heat something up enough and it will bend.

[James Stokes]

The only way I have been able to mark brass is using the lmm14 from Thermark and I still had to hit it hard. If I remember I used 100 power and 30 speed. That was with a 100 watt laser.

[Daniel Muller]

I know this all to well. I have done copper before and had a russian vodka company needed 3000 copper mugs and they sent a sample and i couldn't get it to mark no matter what i did.

[George D Gabert]

Thermark recommends

30w 70 speed 1000 ppi/dpi for SS
and
30W 14 speed 1000 ppi/dpi for brass

Therefore brass needs about 5 times the heat to fuse than SS no matter what your laser power is

GDG

[Brian Robison]

The faster the material moves heat, the more power you need to mark it. Copper=Bad, Titanium=Good.

[Stephen Kane]

From the above it would appear that the settings would vary with the size of sheet and its thickness. Has anyone experience of this?

[Ian Wilson (AUST)]

Thanks so much everyone for your help..........looks like I have to experiment with hitting it hard.

I will let you know of the result!!

Kind regards,

Ian

[Ian Wilson (AUST)]

My test at 10% speed 100% Power worked really well with my 35 watt.

Thanks you!!!!:D

Now for the job.

Cheers Ian

[Wolf Nitsch]

I have done a few peices and found that any oil or solvent on the brass will be a problem. Use something like gun scrubber or a brake cleaner with a cloth to clean the brass just in case somethingwas on the brass. Then like everyone else says adjust your settings.

[AL Ursich]

Since we are talking Brass and Lasers..... I needed to make a brass "In Memory of" tag for a Fire Dept Chain Saw. I did it on my Star 912 but wanted to try a few other ways...

I peeled off the plastic and hit the lacquer coating with a 20 watt laser with many settings and power. It left text that I expected to be able to hit with Brass Oxidizer and "Nothing"....

Is it possible to laser brass then use oxidizer? Is it just my power?

AL

[Dan Hintz]

You need to power through the clearcoat...

[AL Ursich]

That is what I was thinking and even 5 passes no black....

Thanks... No more Hijacking of this thread...

AL:D