Better contrast on wood

[Alick Ford]

Have a job coming up where I want as dark as possible lettering on wood (without filling).
I've tried a few different species of wood, but nothing has come out really dark.

I have been thinking about perhaps switching to wood veneer and lasering through to a sheet material like mdf or ply.

Any ideas?

Much appreciated,

Alick

[Alick Ford]

The new job is on a flat, unlike the picture

[Frank Corker]

There is some stuff called laserblack which is rubbed into the wood. Another option is to use a stick of hard dark wax to fill in, that works very well also.

[Bill Overturf]

I have really good luck with lowering the table about a 1/16 of an inch and getting much darker marks in wood. I think the laser beam just gets a little hotter when you do that give it a try

[Robert L Stewart]

I have tried maple veneer on mdf, standard thickness veneer (.030). It depends on the contrast level that you are looking for. Maple seems to be the best as long as you do not burn thru into the mdf. The mdf will engrave lighter than the maple. Plywood is all over the board contrast wise. I have had no luck with ply so far. Frank has the solution, fill it with laserblack if you really need the contrast. If not engrave it twice or set your dpi to 1200. I am assuming you only have to do a few.

Robert

[Terry Swift]

Where do you get laserblack?

[Michael Hunter]

Lime wood is pretty good for contrast.
Light coloured oak can be good too, but is more variable than lime.

[Jim Coffee]

Alick...

Why do you specify "without filling"?

Powder coat paint (simply brushed onto the engraved area) can do wonders. Why do you not want to color fill?




Have a job coming up where I want as dark as possible lettering on wood (without filling).
I've tried a few different species of wood, but nothing has come out really dark.

I have been thinking about perhaps switching to wood veneer and lasering through to a sheet material like mdf or ply.

Any ideas?

Much appreciated,

Alick

[Dan Hintz]

Alick,

LazerBlak is essentially laser printer toner. If you want to stay away from fillers, you have a few options, but they may not all serve your needs. You can defocus a bit, but you run the risk of non-sharp edges/corners. You can also run slower with a reduced dpi, give the wood a chance to really burn rather than vaporized... defocusing also helps here (run once for depth, then defocus and run a second time for a "burn" run).

[Viktor Voroncov]

Use carbon paper :)) if you can find it now

[Richard Rumancik]

Alick - I assume that the product in question is LazerDarc. It is sold by a company called Smoke-Wood. (They also sell colors.) In addition they have a process for baking on the material by running the laser over it on a second pass.

http://www.smoke-wood.com/SM-wd-2.HTML

Way back some writers in A&E were recommending "liquid shoe polish" as a blackening agent. I have not heard this recommendation for a long time. The problem with any liquid blackening is that it can wick into the fibres of the wood and look bad.

I have tried both toner and LazerDarc and they have their own issues. If you try toner, you need to have something to help hold the toner in place or it can come out. This will leave a mess. I had reasonable success with Pledge furniture polish which was an old standby as well. The wood should be lacquered or otherwise finished in advance of lasering. You can spray the wood with Pledge after lasering, let penetrate, then brush toner over the recesses, and dump off the excess into a pan. A second coat of Pledge may help seal it but you need to be careful not to blow out the toner. Wipe off all excess Pledge with a rag. It can get a bit messy.

There are different kinds of toner and they have changed over the years as well. So don't assume toner is toner. It takes some experimentation.

LazerDarc looks like toner, and it looks like powder (for powder coating) but I hesitate to say it is one or the other. As with toner, there are MANY kinds of powder available. In some cases I prefered the LazerDarc and in others the toner I had worked fine. But it takes some experimentation. If you run into trouble you can usually blow most of the toner out with a jet of compressed air and try again.

If done right, it is hard to know that a blackening powder has been used. It does not look like paint fill at all. So if you do not like the look of paint fill, LazerDarc is an option.

[Alick Ford]

Thanks for all the prompt responses! I'm going to have a day of playing about with focus levels and speed/number of passes. I've been running 100% speed 100% power and results are OK, but I think a better contrast will look really good! I'll email the guys at LazerDarc to see how much postage to Ireland will set me back!

Anyone got some pic's of LazerDarc results or similar method?

Alick

[Glenn Corser]

Alick, I've had good luck with the light luan plywood. Finish it first and then engrave, it usually comes out real dark - but you have to get the light stuff. I also use this http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/maintenance-and-repair/wood-putty.html to fill. It doesn't bleed, rubs off easily where you don't want it, and seems to stick pretty well.

[Gary Hair]

Thanks for all the prompt responses! I'm going to have a day of playing about with focus levels and speed/number of passes. I've been running 100% speed 100% power and results are OK, but I think a better contrast will look really good! I'll email the guys at LazerDarc to see how much postage to Ireland will set me back!

Anyone got some pic's of LazerDarc results or similar method?

Alick

Alick,
You might try slower speed and lower power. The longer the beam is on the wood, the darker it will be. I have used powder coat for paint fill and it works fantastic. You can probably get it much cheaper than lazerdarc, especially overseas.

Gary

[Martin Boekers]

Alick,

One thing to remember when dealing with wood, it is organic and if purchased from wholesalers
may come from different parts of the world and different growing conditions. I have had maple pen cases
that one burns fine and the others, even with multiple passes doesn't give decent contrast.

If you use shoe polish try some neutral first as a sealer, then darker color. Rodne likes Guilders paste it may
come in colors not sure.

I just finished a logo with graphics about 18" square out of Oak (one of my least favorites to burn as it is
larger grain and the grain REALLY effects the contrast, and liquid fill does wick) When I finished the lasering
I sprayed it again with a clear satin lacquer, then used dark brown shoe polish, came out real nice and didn't
look fake as black may have done.

One suggestion may be to go to a local custom frame shop, as they have all sorts of fillers and blenders to repair
frames with you may find some neat stuff from a different industry.


Marty

[Dan Hintz]

Rodne likes Guilders paste it may come in colors not sure.
The paste comes in significantly more colors than Rub-n-Buff, the ol' standby for color fill. I keep meaning to pick up a kit, but I don't do much color fill without paint so it hasn't been a priority. But do a search on it and you'll find more colors than you could ever need... and if they don't have it, mix two colors together to make what you need.

[Martin Boekers]

The paste comes in significantly more colors than Rub-n-Buff, the ol' standby for color fill. I keep meaning to pick up a kit, but I don't do much color fill without paint so it hasn't been a priority. But do a search on it and you'll find more colors than you could ever need... and if they don't have it, mix two colors together to make what you need.

Dan,

You know I have wondered why in this industry that so many use fills that there isn't more "kits" available out there.
Something like this would be great if they provided a "tub" of neutral paste and a variety colored powders which would
be easy to mix for the effect you want. Maybe include a "scraper" designed to remove the overcoat, and something to
wipe the excess residue with.

I'm still surprised no one has repackaged shoe polish, maybe with a bit less viscosity in a similar delivery system as
shoe polish, then label it
Laser Engraving Filler

[Dan Hintz]

Martin,

Lack of significant profit? I can take some $5 Harbor Freight powder coat paint, slap a new label on it, and sell it for $75 as "special laser-ready colorfill". Kinda tough to do that with guilder's paste when most everyone already uses something similar (like Rub-n-Buff).

[Mike Null]

Just so we are not giving the impression that either Rub n Buff or Harbor Freight powder coat makes for good colorfill I want to say I have tried both and find neither to be at all satisfactory. Occasionally R&B will suffice but generally it is wanting as a colorfill.

Dependng on the application, shoe polish frequently works well as do craft paints. For most of my work I use craft paints, for some acrylic spray paints and for others small cans of enamel. I do colorfill jobs two or three times per week so I'm pretty particular about what works.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

The best thing to do is engrave a "contrast" sheet of wood. It's time-consuming to do, but you can refer to it over and over again in the future. Do a test engraving at various speeds with 400 dpi, 600 dpi and 1200 dpi or whatever speed and dpi settings you want. You are not doing a gradient test, so stick with one color. Just change your dpi and speeds when engraving this test. No need to raise/lower the table. You're just seeing what your laser will do when it's in focus. You may also want to jot down your engraving time on each section so you can see how different the times are.

Here is a sample test in ver 9 181096 to get you started. When you are finished with your contrast test, you will see that you can achieve darker contrast at different dpi and speeds.

[Bill Cunningham]

If your wood has a finish (and it should before you laser it) zip out to your local wallyworld, and pick up a pack of Rit Fabric die.. Brown is good, mix it up in a spray bottle, and spray it on the engraved wood, let it sit for a few seconds, and blot it off with a lint free cloth, or the industrial paper towels.. If you want it darker, do it again.. This works on everything from photos to baseball bats

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

If your wood has a finish (and it should before you laser it) zip out to your local wallyworld, and pick up a pack of Rit Fabric die.. Brown is good, ...

What timing! Yesterday, I was standing in the grocery store aisle looking at the RIT dye packages and wondering if they would work... Now I'll have to go back and pick up a package and give it a try.

[John Noell]

Just so we are not giving the impression that either Rub n Buff or Harbor Freight powder coat makes for good colorfill...Although I mostly agree, I have some clients (good ones!) that LOVE the gold RnB. They want coconut shell name tags and have rejected every other type of color-fill I've shown them. I also have shown black powder paint fill for signage and, yep, that's what is on the store front sign. Sometimes "good colorfill" is what your client wants to pay you for. :)

[Mike Null]

John

If you weren't so far away I'd send my jar of powder coat free. Sorry but I threw out my R&B.:)

[Terry Swift]

Tied R&B, paint, Powder Coat, and so many others - outside shoe polish and RIT - with differing results. Nothing really consistent per se; each time with paint, etc. getting different results depending on material being filled. Maybe not understanding the basics on each one, as with Powder Coat - do you laser it afterwards to melt it in (tried that and it's okay)? Saying you do it a certain way without a description of the process leaves me and I'm sure others - scratching our heads and then having to ask a bunch of follow-up questions. Guess what I'm implying / asking is to provide what your process is in making a statement, as we see there are as many answers to the questions as people responding.

Each wood and wood based material (MDF's & others) have their own characteristics too. Bill says to coat the material prior to lasering / filling? What does Bill do to accomplish that - shellacing, varnish, enamel, etc.? For MDF coated items, how would you prep those so that if you paint, R&B, etc. - to get that material off without harming the MDF Coating?

None of us like to search, as you can get one answer or 1,000. Where do you start and then read thru all the posts on a particular search word or phrase?

Just having a place to go to for reference is so great and saves mucho denero and time.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I'm not a huge fan of color filling but I've gotten better recently and here is what I do.

1. I use green painters tape for masking. I'd love to use something 4-6" wide but this stuff works really well. It peals off the base material really easily, goes down easily, and doesn't seem to bleed.
2. You need to lay down a base coat to seal the wood. I've used rattle can clear coat and been relatively happy. I'm interested in trying primer as I think it could be another good option.
3. Lay down 2-3 coats of fast drying enamel spray paint. Krylon, Ace Hardware brand, and certain Rustoleum cans work well. I believe fast drying is key. I've used regular "dry in 2 hours" spray paint and I'd wait 2-4 hours and still have issues with the paint being just a bit wet. It always leads to a mess. Now I know this is my fault, but I'm sure others have this issue. The paints I mentioned above are dry in about 15-30 minutes.

[Tom Bull]

Okume, aka African Mahogany, and Spanish Cedar both engrave with great contrast.

[Bill Cunningham]

Bill says to coat the material prior to lasering / filling? What does Bill do to accomplish that - shellacing, varnish, enamel, etc.? For MDF coated items, how would you prep those so that if you paint, R&B, etc. - to get that material off without harming the MDF Coating?
I use ordinary rattle can lacquer, two coats with a light sanding between coats. Ths seals the wood and prevents the smoke/oil vapor and colour fill from penetrating the un-engraved portion of the wood. I also use turtlewax colorcure black car polish quite a bit. Just brush it into the engraving, let it dry, then buff off the excess on the surface. If your surface was well sealed, and smooth the turtle wax will buff right off.. The black will not come off the engraving onto your fingers, but you can seal it with another light spray of lacquer if you wish.. I usually don't.. Ordinary photo copy toner brushed into the engraved portion of a well sealed piece and the surface buffed off will also make it nice and black, but I would put a light lacquer coat on this, because it will come off on your fingers..Or your customers white suit :rolleyes:

[Joseph Belangia]

Alick,
You might try slower speed and lower power. The longer the beam is on the wood, the darker it will be.
Gary

This is right in the ballpark, Gary.

These little 2.5in. hearts were done out of solid birch.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/5429749556_e8b2e96ac0_z.jpg

Vytek f/X2 65-watt. 100 power and 15 speed. Mfg recommendations were like, 45 speed or something stupid. Awww hell-to-the-no....barely made any color contrast. Slowed it down and let the laser get a longer burn, and that did the trick.

These little golf bag tags were done out of just cheapo luan. I kicked the speed up to a whopping 20 that time.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/5429749558_317e944fdf_z.jpg

[Dan Hintz]

Vytek f/X2 65-watt. 100 power and 15 speed. Slowed it down and let the laser get a longer burn, and that did the trick.
Wow! That's essentially the setting I use to cut... engraving is closer to 100S/100P (if I want a little deeper of engraving, I'll slow it down to 80S/100P).

[Mike Null]

Gary is aboslutely right with the point he is making. What I choose to call "dwell" time is vital to getting a good contrast on most woods. That can be achieved most easily, as Gary described, by reducing speed and power, I also increase the dpi on some jobs and even experiment with out of focus engraving to achieve the desired results. At the same time I do not want to increase the depth of the engraving on many of my jobs which is why I reduce the power.

Even then, light colored woods will prove to be a difficult challenge.