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Neil Pabia
12-05-2011, 3:23 PM
I have a customer that has for the past 2 months been asking me about engraving some crystal apples for his company. He finally sent me the files and is under the impression that I can laser engrave the insides of the crystal in 3-D and have them magically turn the different colors he wants. Am I confused or has he taken too much acid?

Chuck Stone
12-05-2011, 4:10 PM
can he get you some of the acid?

Chuck Stone
12-05-2011, 4:11 PM
subsurface engraving isn't something you can do with your laser. He might be thinking
of those things you get in gift shops and kiosks.

Neil Pabia
12-05-2011, 4:14 PM
Does it use a special crystal or machine?

Martin Boekers
12-05-2011, 5:02 PM
Yes, the laser designed for this is VERY expensive. Do a search online to see if it's feasable (cost wise) to do a short run.

Chuck Stone
12-05-2011, 5:06 PM
uses crystal I'm sure you can get in many places. Uses YAG or DPSS lasers, maybe
some others too. I dont' know a whole lot about it, but I'd bet the $oftware alone
would keep me out of the market if I had a free machine!

Joe Hillmann
12-05-2011, 5:14 PM
I think he is looking for something like this http://www.engravingmachinesite.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/3d-laser-crystal-engraving.jpg
You could change the color by using LED's. But, as was said earlier, you can't do that with the equipment you have


Something similar to this was discussed in the subsurface engraving thread last week but that ends up with a 2d image that gets... stretched? And that also can't be done on a CO2, it requires a YAG.

Neil Pabia
12-06-2011, 11:16 AM
I went and looked at an example the customer had, they appear to be waterslides wedged between plexi blocks.