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Dave Strickler
03-04-2005, 9:58 AM
After getting some great results engraving photos onto 5x7 black marble my brother picked up for me on Ebay, I received my first order of Lasersketch marble yesterday. The cheap "Ebay" tiles engraved well, but many pieces had some white veins in them, so I was really looking forward to receiving the Lasersketch product.

First I tried engraving the LS marble with the same settings I had been using on the "cheap" tiles, (40 speed/80 power 600 dpi on my 30 watt Explorer). The results were terrible with no detail, and a dark silver/gray light areas. I then tried settings suggested in earlier posts on this forum and got some fairly good detail, but the LS marble just does not have the black/white contrast to produce a good photo engraving. No matter what settings I used, the dark silver/gray was the lightest engraving the LS marble would reveal. I had also previously picked up a few marble floor tiles from a local Home Depot, and they engraved the same as the LS marble (no contrast). Pictures posted by Laura and others looked great on Lasersketch marble. I guess it is just hit or miss on whether you get a good "laserable" batch from Lasersketch?

Keith had mentioned Color Stone as a marble supplier in an earlier post. Is their marble more consistantly "laserable"? It seems so far that some white veining in the marble may indicate that it will engrave with more black/white contrast.

I'm going to call Lasersketch today and see if they can educate me a little about the properties of marble.

Aleta Allen
03-04-2005, 10:07 AM
Dave,


I too have not had the best luck with the marble photos being as clear and nice as those shown on the forums. I too have a 30 watt. Please , if you find out any helpful information, would you mind sharing it? I would like to be able to produce the quality seen on others work.

Thanks

aleta

Dave Strickler
03-04-2005, 10:19 AM
Hello Aleta. Of course, I'll be glad to share anything I learn. I had been getting some great results on the "cheap" marble tiles from Ebay, but the Lasersketch marble threw a monkey wrench into my delusions of grandeur.:)

No one's answering the phone at Lasersketch this morning. They may be at the ARA show in Vegas this week.

Laura Zaruba
03-04-2005, 10:30 AM
Hi Dave.

Do you use the Photograv? If so, have you tried the parameters LS recommends? If you're still having trouble Jim and Matthew at LS are great to work with. I had to call a few times to get it right but I've never been less than pleased with their materials once I got it figured out.

Good luck!

~Laura :)

Nate Sauder
03-04-2005, 10:32 AM
Hi Dave-

I've used LaserSketch tiles with pretty good success. I have a 40W Epilog Mini 24x12, and I **think** the settings I use are 32 Power and 55 Speed at 300 dpi. I can double check those later tonight. To arrive at those settings, I used a lot of info from this forum and did several tests.

The bottom line is that the LS marble requires a lot less power, and 300 dpi seems to work the best.

Nate

Dave Strickler
03-04-2005, 10:48 AM
Hi Laura and Nate.

I do use PhotoGrav. I tried the LS recomended settings Laura and others posted on ealier threads. I've experimented with the 5x7 LS tiles I received, but not the 8.5x11's. I'm going to experiment with the 8.5x11's today with different photos.

With the non-LS tiles, I scanned and engraved at 600 DPI. With the LS tiles, I scanned at 600 DPI, then resampled to 300 DPI and touched up in Photopaint. Then I Photgraved with the black marble parameters LS emailed me when I placed my order.

I'll try the 8.5x11's today and see if I have better luck.

Keith Outten
03-04-2005, 12:22 PM
The Color Stone International black marble tiles are imported from China and always provide a consistant engraving. These tiles are easy to work with and for the most part free of any white veins, they are also less expensive than LS I believe. The only down side to purchasing tile from Color Stone Int is they are only available in 12" square tiles and you must order in quantity, I normally order a pallet load at a time.

Anyone who is interested in purchasing custom sized tiles from me will be able to do so in the new Northwind Associates Forum that we will be working on this weekend. As SawMill Creeks first official sponsor Northwind Associates will be very active here and I hope everyone benefits from our association with SMC.

Shaddy Dedmore
03-04-2005, 4:03 PM
LS tiles offer consistancy. You can't go above 300dpi however, and you can't use very much power. On my 45W 24TT, Epilog, i use about 15-20 power and 40 spd. You can only get shades of grey with LS, not a good bright white. So don't even try (c:

I've got much more spectacular results (up to 1200 dpi) with regular cheap floor tile, unfortunately they don't have consistancy. Veins, and other bad spots. You go through a lot just to get 1 good one.

So I end up going with LS for everything, until I can get a more consistant marble. When i get some dough, I'll try the other places that have been suggested.

Search the past posts, there's a lot of info here on just this subject, including PhotoGrav files to be used with LS tiles.

Shaddy

Keith Outten
03-04-2005, 4:40 PM
Below is an engraved diploma on the tile we use. The photo was taken outside without flash on a pure white background. I had to tilt the plaque to reduce the glare from the glossy surface. I only resized the photo, there were no color adjustments made at all. I don't think we ever tried to get a whiter engraving, maybe it is possible but the text is very close in color to the white paper.

Jeff DeVore
03-04-2005, 5:13 PM
I have been rubbing white acrylic paint into the engraving which makes it come out much brighter. Jeff.

Rodne Gold
03-04-2005, 11:46 PM
I use white/silver rub 'n buff or various gilding type pastes to whiten/brighten/colour marble and granite engraving , do it on glass too to whiten the laser mark. (only problem is some stone is still porous and the various colorants can stain it)

I use a test piece of stone and engrave small squares of halftone at various speeds and powers to see what works best for that particular type.

Barbara Sample
03-10-2005, 1:21 PM
I have been engraving marble since June, and have had both good and bad results. I started out with marble tiles order from a distributor here in the NorthEast. they were absolute black and had to be cut fro 12 x 12 to the size that you wanted. My husband cuts them for me, and they come out wonderful. I ususally hand finish the edges with a granite and marble sander, and they look very nice when finished. When I am in a hurry and do not have time to sand them, I take magic marker to the raw edge, and blacken them. Works very well.
I was very pleased with the results that I was getting on the tiles, but saw the Lasersketch stuff with the edges finished, so I asked them for some samples, and no matter what settings I tried, I could not get the same white engravings that I was getting with the other tiles. Then I tried getting some from LaserBits, and still had a hard time. I then went to a seminar that Laserbits held here, and came home with some new settings. I used his setting (Mike from LaserBits) and they came out very nice. However, they do not engrave a deep, and when I paint them, I find it a little harder to do them. For the LaserBits tiles, I use a setting of 100% speed and 35% power. I have gotten good results with those settings. I use a setting of 40% speed and 100% power for the other tiles that I cut up. They come out beautiful, and I use that one for most of my things, I would like to use the other stuff more often, because it is less work for me, but I just do not get the same quality. I am going to be buying some of the black onyx pendants that Lasersketch is selling, so I will keep you all posted on those results. Also any more advice on this subject will be welcomed. :)

Barbara Sample
RGile Engravers

Mark Dickens
03-12-2005, 9:56 PM
Barbara,

Laserbits resells LaserSketch's product...that's why you still had problems when you ordered from Laserbits. We have been engraving LaserSketch's marble since July of last year. We have an Epilog 24TT 45W and use 60% speed, 45% power with 200DPI or 70% speed and 40% power at 300DPI. I don't know if LaserSketch's marble is softer than some others...perhaps that's why it doesn't take a higher resolution as well as other marbles. They have a new Black Diamond granite product that I saw at the ARA show and it's really pretty. I need to order a few pieces and try this out.

Mark

Pete Simmons
04-05-2005, 5:36 PM
Tried a few pieces of Colorstone Black Marble from Keith. Used Speed =60 Power= 85 dpi=600 on a Epilog Mini-18 35 watt.

The marble etches just fine. As with many of our pictures the picture does not show the detail and beauty of this piece of marble.


http://www.laserimagearts.com/images/gallery/hhsjan05.jpg

Chuck Burke
04-08-2005, 4:33 PM
Keith, where do you get your marble?

Thanks
Chuck

Keith Outten
04-09-2005, 12:25 AM
Chuck,

ColorStone International in Atlanta Georgia

http://www.color-stone.com/