Flexibrass

[Annette Plamondon]

I know this has been discussed before but I am still having some problems with engraving flexibrass. I am trying to engrave black/white and the white is very dirty and the engraving does not clean out the way they do on my rotary engraver. I have messed with settings but I stopped because I was using too much material up.

I am using a LS100Ex from gravograph with a 30 watt laser.

I also need to cut the tags out, so engraving and cutting settings are needed. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

[Richard Rumancik]

Seems you are having problems with the black dust settling back on to the engraved area. If you can set the driver to engrave "bottom to top" (assuming exhaust is farthest away from the operator, i.e. the top) it tends to help with the dust removal. Air assist will also help blow out the dust if you have it.

You can also experiment with slight out-of-focus to reduce lines in the raster.

I always get raised ridges on the front when I try to cut from the colored side of Flexibrass/Flexicolor so I usually apply masking and cut my blanks from the back side of the material. Then I remove masking and use a fixture to mark. This might not be practicable for all jobs but it is the only way I have been able to get edge quality to my satisfaction.

This material also has the habit of getting sticky on the edges when cut so you will need to address that issue as well.

I wish the manufacturers could some up with a formulation that did not have the ridge problem and the sticky-edge problem.

[Annette Plamondon]

Thanks for the help! Yeah I get the raised edges as well. I need to engrave 850 plates that are going to be taped to the back of theater chairs and this is the material that my boss chose. Would there be a better choice. It needs to be flexible, thin and not too expensive?!?!

[Jeff Belany]

I just did my first Flexibrass a few days ago. The lettering came out great but when it cut the heat of the cutting warped the piece (quite a bit in one spot) I don't think I over powered it as I had to break it away when it finished. I even tried heating the piece a little and then putting weight on it until it cooled, didn't help much.

Anyone have issues like this?

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Mike Null]

I would use laser sublimation on brass colored metal for the plates.

[John Noell]

Flexibrass can look nice but it is not resistant to scratchiing. I would not use it on the back of a theatre chair. That said, I use quite a bit and have found that you need to experiment to find the sweet spots for engraving and cutting. I don't have the settings on this computer but I remember being very frustrated before I got it right. The sticky edges do get less sticky with time (a day or two) and a swipe of alcohol seems to help speed it up.