engraving tiles

[walter hofmann]

Hi all
I just thoiught to share my experience with engraving italien 4 inch tiles.
I am using the low tack laser tape the engrave with speed 250mm/s and 20% ( 5mA) power.
the masking tape create this brownish color directly.
here a few sample
250006250007250008
greetings
waltfl

[Chad Fitzgerald]

nice walt, i like these. are these Laertile or if not where are you getting them? what do you mean the mask creates the color?? can you explain a little more on how you made these? thanks, they are real nice. Chad

[Dan Hintz]

I really like the look of these, but I'm also confused by what you mean... are you sure it's the tape that's making the mark and not just the laser pulsing THROUGH the tape and burning the tile? Have you tried scrubbing the tile to see if the mark is fairly permanent?

Side note... the peacock looks the best because it has no hard edges. The other two could use a fade along the edges to ease the sharpness. They would look 10x better like that.

[walter hofmann]

Hi
OK here it goes , the tiles ordinary from HD and lowes 4x4 inch venetian stone called " rialto beige" they was about $ 0.30 piece.
the masking tape is the 6 inch low tack laser masking tape from laserbits.
yes the tile what you see is allready washed off with denature alcohol and aceton.
the color comes from the tape thru the burning from the laser, because the laser did not burn thru.
greetings
waltfl

[rick woodward]

Being a newb, I have to ask. Why tape it? because of smoke deposit? I have Rtape from when i had a plotter. Is it laser safe , can i go ahead and use that type of tape? I would say the "glue" on the tape is a rubber cement. Thanks, rick

[walter hofmann]

hi
actually in the beginning as I started with tiles I thought I need it as mask to fill then afterwards like with granite, but ir turned out the laser could not realy penetrate the glaze on the tiles but the picture was perfect just from the tape color . I got no idea why or how but it turned out its pretty permanently I made tile coaster for a restaurant they put it even thru there dishwashing process and they still the same after 8 month rough handling.
greetings
walt

[Martin Boekers]

I too am confused about the tape portion....I have used all sorts of tape through the years
and never had one discolor the substrate. Is the tape actually discoloring the substrate or
is the tape left on the piece as your raster away the piece?

[Dee Gallo]

This is VERY interesting to me. I had good results with Italian tile in the past, but it always rastered white (without any taping) unless I used Cermark. I was using a lot more power, like 50%. So maybe I need to go back and test 20% and see what happens. Nice effect, thanks for posting!

cheers, dee

[walter hofmann]

250070Hi all
you guys have challanged me now to go more intensive to find out what happen.
I also just found out as I had to use another batch of italien tiles, that it had a much harder glaze that i had to rais the power to 34% ( 8mA) and slow the speed down to 100mm. during this adjusting process I discovered that the glue from the tape turns brown and fuses with the glazing.
the picture shows the resultat. the other fact that I think it is a kind of fusion is that on the top of the picture the tip of the castle roof is very light because I forgot to turn off the air assit and it di blow on it make it cooler and not so dark with this.
now I know I always have to make some tests with this tiles.
greetings
waltfl

[walter hofmann]

hey I was confused too in the beginning because I could not imagine that a white tape can bring such a color permanantly.
no the tape is completly burned away where it is colored just where it is prety much withe is it still there and I can wipe it off with denature alcohol.

dee
this was my original intenion after engraving to let the tape on to make it a easy coloring without messing up the whole tile, but I had this surprise and was exited for this easy solution250072
this is one of the first one if you look at the bear this was just with the tape and the letters then was colored with the coloring paint from laserbits.
it did make no sense to me to go the extra mile with coloring if the tape brings pretty much the same result.
greetings
walt

[Dan Hintz]

Walter,

Congratulations on finding a new marking method, particularly one that appears to be permanent. It's these happy "accidents" that are the best finds...

[Mike DeRegnaucourt]

Hi Walt,

Is the masking you are using from Laserbits the one with Model # SUS 015? Or are you using one of the Green Laser tapes from them?

Thanks,
Mike

[Steve Busey]

the masking tape is the 6 inch low tack laser masking tape from laserbits.


Do you have a SKU/part number for that tape - all I see on their website is "medium tack"

Thanks

[Clyde Baumwell]

Walt
Thanks for sharing this happy accident. Which tape are you using. What is the Laserbits part number and description? Laserbits does not manufacture tape, they buy from a distributor and resell it...so there could be lots of "donor" tapes out there

[walter hofmann]

sorry guys and girls
it is the medium tack tape from laser bits SUS 015 6inch wide 100 yards.
greetings
walt

[walter hofmann]

Hi all
here are to mine and probably to ur surprise too
I tested other regular painters masking tape and the result was absolutly the sam like you can see on the picture and I also use this kind of art masking fluid what is a rubber solution bought at wallmart. the tapes are from Homedepot or very where else.
it means it is the kind of rubber cement what gets fused with the tile glazing and creates the coloring.
without tape or masking fluid it comes out like dee sayd just pretty much whit - grey.250213250215250218250220greetings
walt

[Chuck Stone]

I must be missing something. I use R-Tape, but have used many many others. I have
never found anything that fused with the glaze.
Now I have to go out and buy more tile to play with..

EDIT

You're using a rubber cement WITH the tape? Does it give you that color
without the rubber cement?

[George Brown]

I'm a little confused about that too. I thought Walter tried both, tape and rubber cement, but not together.

[Mike Null]

What is the result with no tape?

[paul mott]

I have just tried it here and the results are good with this standard glazed wall tile.
Not yet certain about the durability but this has been through the dishwasher once without any signs of degradation.
It has now been put back into the dishwasher, awaiting the next load etc, and if it survives say 10 cycles then I think it is pretty durable.

Thank you for the information Walter - another interesting discovery. ;)


250245

[john banks]

What UK available tape did you use Paul?

[paul mott]

Hi John,

I used paper transfer tape (of the type used for placing vinyl signs).

[Dean Fowell]

Nice job I grab the Black Granite Tiles from Home Depot and did a nice one of my Family I will have to try some other stuff I have not been using my Laser as much the last 6 months now getting back in the swing of it

[walter hofmann]

hey guys
please dont mixe up everything's. I use ether tape or rubber cement actully is a masking fluid where the main is rubber.
by the way
i had the same results with tape on regular low and high glaze tiles.
greetings
walt

[walter hofmann]

hi mike
without the tape it laser something like light whitsh-grey
greetings
waltfl

[walter hofmann]

Hi mike
I did not read your question earlier, sorry
If I engrave without tape it comes out just greyish but it takes much more power if you wana colorfill them afterwards.
greetings
waltfl

[Steven Cox]

Congratulations Walt, fantastic discovery!.
The implications and applications of this technique could be enormous. Has anybody exposed the engraved tiles to extreme UV light to see if it fades or degrades over time? If it doesn't then outdoor applications opens many markets.

Regards Steve.

[paul mott]

It appears that any material which produces carbon soot when burned / vaporized will work (with those producing the maximum amount of soot being the best).

A large percentage of this soot combines with, or becomes trapped within, the tile surface glaze and although some will wipe off when complete for the most part it will be permanently embedded into the glaze.

Just a thought but has anyone tested ‘Painters Tape’ for PVC content ??

Paul.

[walter hofmann]

Hi all
a little update.
I try a few other tiles and the result is that only real glazed tiles work . the tiles what are like flat whare you can not see or feel the glaze does not work at all.
I thought I let you know that you dont have the same hassle.
greetings
waltfl

[Khalid Nazim]

Hi Dean, what was the color of engraving that you got on Black Granite HD tiles using the tape?

Regards
KN

[Lee DeRaud]

Ooookay...that was interesting. Just ran some tests on $0.15 pure-white glossy Home Depot tiles.

Transfer paper works a lot better than the blue painter tape IMHO. And as Paul said, the more "soot" the better: I noticed that a crease in the tape showed up darker, which led to the discovery that using multiple layers of transfer paper gives a much darker marking. Either way, it's slow: on my 25W machine, I'm at 100% power and sub-10% speed to get decent results. OTOH, I'm trading off laser time for material cost, which, given the insane prices I've paid for LaserTile, is substantially lower.

Also FWIW, the "wax-on, wax-off" trick with artist's oil paint works great on glossy tile marked this way. (Probably NOT with the rough Italian tiles though.)

[David Rust]

Ooookay...that was interesting. Just ran some tests on $0.15 pure-white glossy Home Depot tiles....

Same results here on cheap white glazed HD tile. Slower speeds, higher power, multi-layers all tend to make the color darker. I found a big difference between one layer and two layers of transfer tape(LB SUS016) and little difference between 2 layers and 3 layers. Also better results as I increase from 300 - 400 - 600 dpi

I washed it with soap and water, it lightened a bit but the color appears to be pretty stable...
Next I tried Krud Kutter and then Windex... It didn't lighten any more than the original wash with soap and water...

If I put my glasses on and take a closer look, the colors on the high points of the etch are washed out but the overall color appears permanent...

Very interesting!

[Steven Cox]

Had a play with a couple of tiles today, I couldn't get it to work on a High Gloss tile perhapd because it was an expensive one. But for a textured floor tile it etched very well and the result was very impressive. Pic below best result was 40mm per second Speed, Min Power @ 25%, Max Power @ 30%, Interval 0.01mm using 1 layer of elcheapo medium tack signwriters paper application tape.

Just saw Davids Post an I'll try 2 layers next time. Anyway here's my results from the textured floor tile I tried....

Regards to all, Steve.

250551

[walter hofmann]

OK here a bit more update
I used the HD high glossy 4 inch tiles with the scotch Masking tape #2020 high take from HD. I also always work with 635 DPI picture ( safed n corel photo paint with 635 DPI) and a scangap of 0.4. the settings with the light object AWC608 DSP are: power 38%, speed 250mm/s.
on the high gloss tiles it came out deep black.
greetings
walt

[Dan Hintz]

Looks like you've found a real winner of a process, Walter... few of us can say the same, so cheers to ya :)