Amy Shelton
05-09-2011, 3:21 PM
I have a 12" x 39" wall-hanging to engrave. I am piecing two 12"x24" sheets of BF Select, 1/16" red with black core. When engraving small details and areas that are 3/4" or so, it looks even. But engraving large areas, it just looks blotchy.
I read somewhere that certain Rowmark products should use two passes. I played around with different settings, and this is what I thought did best:
75 power, 100 speed, 500 dpi, with image density of 3 on my 50 watt Universal, TWO passes
I thought a dot pattern (I used 70% gray instead of full black) would help to decrease the amount of warping, plus would give it some texture. And I used image density of 3 because it looked good enough and would decrease the time.
By the way, to secure it, I used a coroplast sign, and sprayed some temporary embroidery adhesive on it. It worked well but I should have sprayed it a little heavier, it came loose at one end. I left it attached to the sign while I vector cut it also.
Have you noticed that different colors of engravable plastic, even from the same manufacturer, require different settings?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Amy
PS The dark blob at the bottom of the picture is the shadow from my camera lens; I had it on macro.
I read somewhere that certain Rowmark products should use two passes. I played around with different settings, and this is what I thought did best:
75 power, 100 speed, 500 dpi, with image density of 3 on my 50 watt Universal, TWO passes
I thought a dot pattern (I used 70% gray instead of full black) would help to decrease the amount of warping, plus would give it some texture. And I used image density of 3 because it looked good enough and would decrease the time.
By the way, to secure it, I used a coroplast sign, and sprayed some temporary embroidery adhesive on it. It worked well but I should have sprayed it a little heavier, it came loose at one end. I left it attached to the sign while I vector cut it also.
Have you noticed that different colors of engravable plastic, even from the same manufacturer, require different settings?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Amy
PS The dark blob at the bottom of the picture is the shadow from my camera lens; I had it on macro.