white marble

[jeff bissett 52]

i just tried to engrave white marble from the depot & it did nothing. the same setting on black granite works fine why?? -Jeff

[Dee Gallo]

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to the Creek! You're using settings for granite but marble requires almost the opposite settings of speed and power. You should add your laser power and other info to your signature so people can help you. In general, marble needs low speed and high power. Granite needs high speed and low power.

cheers, dee

[Lee DeRaud]

Leaving aside the settings issue, I was under the impression that the marking mechanism for marble was that the laser actually bleached it, so I'd expect lasering white marble to be somewhat less than satisfying.

[Jeff Belany]

White Marble doesn't show much after lasering, you need to color fill with black (or another dark color) I use a black wax that works great. Unfortunately, Home Depot discontinued both the white and brown marble (4"x4") I had been using. I have several good customers who used these two colors and I haven't been able to find a substitute. I have started to use white ceramic with Cermark but can't find a dark brown that marks white like the Marble. If anyone has any ideas for a darker brown, I would appreciate it.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Chuck Stone]

I used Windsor & Newton ink (nut brown) and it worked OK. Not sure how
long it will hold up, though.

[Martin Boekers]

Leaving aside the settings issue, I was under the impression that the marking mechanism for marble was that the laser actually bleached it, so I'd expect lasering white marble to be somewhat less than satisfying.

I know most say it bleaches it, but you can feel the roughness from engraving. Is it possible that all we
are doing is taking the polished surface out and the rough marble or granite shows through? It seems
that the engraved area is never white but looks like the area on the piece that hasn't been polished.
Any thoughts?

[jeff bissett 52]

ok I have a full spectrum 40 watt laser I was engraving an image on black granite 5watts on the meter at 100% speed it looks good. then I tried the white marble thinking I could fill it with gold leaf to enhance the engraving thats when I was having trouble. now that I read some of the threads I set the speed at 19% & raised the watts to 14 (the image was worked in photoshop at 1000 dpi) it looks good ghost like but it dosen't look good when filled I'll keep playing with it as well as reading your threads thanks for the help oh yes I use armorall just before engraving thanks- Jeff

[Lee DeRaud]

I know most say it bleaches it, but you can feel the roughness from engraving. Is it possible that all we
are doing is taking the polished surface out and the rough marble or granite shows through? It seems
that the engraved area is never white but looks like the area on the piece that hasn't been polished.
That's certainly true for the granite, but the true marble I've tried behaves significantly different, yielding 2-3 bits of dynamic range), while the granite is much more of a black-and-white (well, black-and-gray) operation. I don't doubt that there is some of the 'depolishing' effect happening with the marble, but something else is in play as well. Which effect dominates certainly depends a lot on the underlying color.

Not to mention that there is a lot of stuff being sold as "marble" that probably isn't...if it costs the same as granite, it almost certainly isn't marble.