Tyler Phong
04-21-2010, 9:30 PM
Hello, I'm new the forum. I work at a cemetery/mortuary in california. I normally do prints and DVDs there however just recently got assigned to make lot blocks and urn engravings.
Lot blocks (for grave location purposes) - i use stainless steel plates with cermark
Urn Engravings - I currently engrave Wood, Marble, and Ceramic Urns.
We use a Epilog Legend 36EXT 75watts laser CO2
I am very new to this and basically had to take a crash course in learning this through searching this forum as no one at work knows how to use this. (the guy who did use this before was laid off)
Anyway, after learning the basics of this i was able to engrave decent enough with no problems. When engraving the lot block i engraved at 80speed and 100power at 600dpi. all i engrave on those are numbers in each corner. I follow instructions i found on this forum: cleaned the plates with laquer thinner, let dry, wipe clean, apply a thin coat of cermark with brush (i plan to have them order me an airbrush), let dry, laser. I know that most people say to use a slow speed like 20 or so. But the guy before me used 80s as i did and they came out fine. washed off, scrubbed with scotchbrite and it the mark stayed.
With the Marble Urn, i lasered at 10speed and 100 power and the engraving was deep enough to feel it with my fingers and enough to fill in the engraved letters with paint.
Just a few weeks ago, i had the laser serviced as it was over a year since the last one. He aligned it with the target and cleaned the lenses. then he tested it out on laserable metal (kinda like the rowmark plastic) and it the lettering showed. I thought all was good.
I haven't used it in about a couple weeks but when i used it this week, i noticed i had to slow my speed a lot just to make the cermark stick and when i did the urn at my regular 10s 100p it marked but it was so light there was no real indention to where i could fill with paint.
I usually do 56 lot blocks at a time (filling up the entire 36x24) and before it took me about just 1 hour to complete. When i did it this time around after it was serviced, i had to go at 25s 100p and took me 3 hours to complete. I had 291 blocks to do this week and it took me 3 days to complete.
At first i thought it was the cermark but after the light engraving with the marble urn it seems to be the laser intensity is not there as it was before.
Does anyone know what it could be? any advice is most appreciated. I know above was a long read but i wanted to make sure to include most of the details so you knew what i was talking about.
thanks in advance.
Lot blocks (for grave location purposes) - i use stainless steel plates with cermark
Urn Engravings - I currently engrave Wood, Marble, and Ceramic Urns.
We use a Epilog Legend 36EXT 75watts laser CO2
I am very new to this and basically had to take a crash course in learning this through searching this forum as no one at work knows how to use this. (the guy who did use this before was laid off)
Anyway, after learning the basics of this i was able to engrave decent enough with no problems. When engraving the lot block i engraved at 80speed and 100power at 600dpi. all i engrave on those are numbers in each corner. I follow instructions i found on this forum: cleaned the plates with laquer thinner, let dry, wipe clean, apply a thin coat of cermark with brush (i plan to have them order me an airbrush), let dry, laser. I know that most people say to use a slow speed like 20 or so. But the guy before me used 80s as i did and they came out fine. washed off, scrubbed with scotchbrite and it the mark stayed.
With the Marble Urn, i lasered at 10speed and 100 power and the engraving was deep enough to feel it with my fingers and enough to fill in the engraved letters with paint.
Just a few weeks ago, i had the laser serviced as it was over a year since the last one. He aligned it with the target and cleaned the lenses. then he tested it out on laserable metal (kinda like the rowmark plastic) and it the lettering showed. I thought all was good.
I haven't used it in about a couple weeks but when i used it this week, i noticed i had to slow my speed a lot just to make the cermark stick and when i did the urn at my regular 10s 100p it marked but it was so light there was no real indention to where i could fill with paint.
I usually do 56 lot blocks at a time (filling up the entire 36x24) and before it took me about just 1 hour to complete. When i did it this time around after it was serviced, i had to go at 25s 100p and took me 3 hours to complete. I had 291 blocks to do this week and it took me 3 days to complete.
At first i thought it was the cermark but after the light engraving with the marble urn it seems to be the laser intensity is not there as it was before.
Does anyone know what it could be? any advice is most appreciated. I know above was a long read but i wanted to make sure to include most of the details so you knew what i was talking about.
thanks in advance.