engraving saw blade question

[Chad Fitzgerald]

yesterday i decided to put a saw blade in the laser to engrave a deer on it. had never tried it before, first run and WOW, i hit the settings just right, engraved beautiful. I had just went out in the shop and grabed an old blade. I am assuming i happened to grab one with a particular coating that allowed me to engrave it. anyone know what type of coating it may have been. it was an old blade, all the writing on it was worn off so i dont even know the brand. It engraved a nice contrasting black color. wouold love to know as when i showed it to a couple people they wanted one, and before i disply it on my facebook i want to know what type works and what dont.
thanks

[Rich Harman]

Steels and some stainless steels do engrave nicely. It may have nothing to do with special coatings. I believe it is the iron content that is important.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

i will look into that as well then. i tried a couple more i had layng around with similar coatings, looks,and it simply removed the coating. decent engraving but no "black" like the first. ive got to get the first one back from my friend so i can look closer but it does seem like the first one "blackened" the steel rather than the coating. I just assumed there was no way the laser would do that. i flipped the first one over and tried a few different settings and it did seem to engrave into it rather than just change the color of the surface. ANY MORE THOUGHTS?? ANYONE

[Martin Boekers]

Maybe take it by a local metal working shop and explain what you are doing.
Might or might not help, just a thought.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

good idea, im gonna take by the lumberyard and ask, but probably get further at a metal working shop.
thanks

[Mike Null]

Chad

Using a very slow speed and highest power you should be able to make a black mark on steel. The speed will have to be less than 10% and will vary by type of steel.

I find this to be an unacceptable marking method due to the extreme slow speed. On thin metal you may warp the metal making it unusable. Cermark is a much better option.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

That makes sense Mike, i think thats why i was so surprised and hopefull. I ran the blade at 90 speed and 45 power, 250 dpi. it came out almost perfect. i will put a pic up once i get it back. it was just an old blade i had sitting in the shop for my table saw. im ezcited to think there is a type of saw blade that can be engraved with no prep work "ceremark, etc" and no clean up, no painting no masking. just put it in, take it out with a nice photo on it. i think it could be a real money maker. it was a 10" saw blade, it only took about 8:45 min to run. i know it was one of my cheaper blades as when i first opened my wood shop 7 yrs ago i started with the cheaper blades and thats when it was from. i now use cmt and freud blades which i know this was not.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

OK, here is a pic of it, after looking closer it does seem to be the coating that the laser turned black. notice the outside 1" the antlers started fading which is where the coating has worn off from use. the coating looks to be a silver/gray color. almost sparkly but not alot. Hoping the pic will help someone figure out what it is. i took another look at the backside where i lasered xxxooo's with different settings, i can make it darker or lighter. Let me know what you all think.

245860

[Dan Hintz]

OK, here is a pic of it, after looking closer it does seem to be the coating that the laser turned black. notice the outside 1" the antlers started fading which is where the coating has worn off from use. the coating looks to be a silver/gray color. almost sparkly but not alot. Hoping the pic will help someone figure out what it is. i took another look at the backside where i lasered xxxooo's with different settings, i can make it darker or lighter. Let me know what you all think.

245860

Once you posted your speed/power, I knew you weren't affecting the blade itself... way too fast and low power, had to be the coating.

My guess is the coating is a galvanizing spray of one form or another. It acts/reacts like Cermark, but speeds and powers can be a little lighter. As light as you have it? Meh, probably not, but without seeing the blade in person that's my next best guess...

[Chuck Stone]

now put a clock mechanism in it

[Bill Cunningham]

It could be a waterbased lacquer on the blade..
I had a curious problem a while back.. |I had some pewter dog tags custom made. They would always laser nice and black without Cermark. I would lasermark the dogs name, then seal them with a rattlecan spray lacquer. I did several orders with the same tag manuf. over 2-3 years. the last order of 100 tags I received would not mark. The only production change they made was the lacquer coating. They sent me several samples with different lacquers, and it seems that the ones that marked black were coated with a waterbased lacquer that they would buy in 5 gal pails. They changed to another lacquer from a different supplier, and this lacquer was unaffected by the laser. Now I have a 100 left, and have to burn the lacquer off in the jig first, then cermark them and run them again. The next time I order, they told me to specifically ask for the water based lacquer. they sent me samples of the tags with two different types of waterbased, and they both turned black when lasered.. This might be something some folks want to experiment with. The black did not 'fuse' to the metal like the cermark does, but burns hard enough to resist moderate finger rubbing and when clear coated, they seem to last. I've had none come back, and I'm sure some dogs are pretty hard on them with all the other junk on the collars..

[Dan Hintz]

Good info, Bill... it'd be even better if you could weasel the lacquer name / manufacturer out of them :D

[Albert Nix]

Looks great would be neat to find a cheap sub for cermark. Having said that, that is not a cheap blade, you know you can have it sharpened or replace the carbide tips don't you?

[Chad Fitzgerald]

interesting. ill have to look into that. i wonder if any waterbased laquer wouold work. Have to go to madison today maybe i will see if i can find a pint at HD.
I posted this question on the woodworkers forum as well, I think i narrowed it down to a bosch made blade that sears sells, "craftsman". Im gonna get to sears, "NOT THIS WEEKEND" and see if i can match it up. With a search online i found very similar blades and they are showing titanium coating.some have a zinc coating.
Anyone know what a laser does to either of these coatings, titanium or zinc?
I think my next hurdle will be that they have most likely changed coating over the years as this was an old blade. hmmmmm. Another response i got was possible galvanized coating and they refered to the "cold galvanized" spray. I found info on this in old posts here and see that the laser will mark that. Wonder if they used a galvanized coatin gon these blades. Does that make sense?
Well, keep the thoughts coming, will let you know if i find out more.
thanks

[Chad Fitzgerald]

Looks great would be neat to find a cheap sub for cermark. Having said that, that is not a cheap blade, you know you can have it sharpened or replace the carbide tips don't you?
yes, this has been sharpened many times and was in the pile to go again. and thats the problem, blades arent cheep so going out and buying a bunch hoping to find the right one, well kind of expensive.

[Bill Cunningham]

Good info, Bill... it'd be even better if you could weasel the lacquer name / manufacturer out of them :D

I think I might have it someplace.. There were a LOT of emails going back and forth between the tag manufactuer and myself, and I'm pretty sure they told me where they got it..I will poke through my old emails and see what I can find. I picked up a can of WB lacquer at my local hardware, but no luck with that, and I just didn't have the time (or inclination) to buy a bunch of types and try them.. In some of the previous batches of tags there were always a few that would not mark, and it was instantly noticeable by the little sparkles when the beam hit the surface.. When the part would mark, there was a noticeable burn when the beam hit. I assume the black came from the burnt lacquer and this is why you could rub some off before you sealed it. Once sealed it seemed to be pretty fixed.