Color fill Bamboo

[Avraham Monina]

Hey friends,
I am doing some Bamboo work and I wanted to find out if anyone has tried to color fill it, the way I have tried it works OK is car wax (all I had at home) on the wood, then etching it, then wiping it off, but usually the paint (acrylic) sticks even to the waxed area, so I use water or alcohol , to wipe it off and that works most of the time.

Anyone has a different method?
Thanks in advance!
Avi

[Ross Moshinsky]

There are a few ways to darken wood.

1. Mask with transfer paper. Laser. Spray sealer. Paint with whatever color you want.
2. Engrave. Use liquid shoe polish to darken the engraved areas.
3. LaserDark. I haven't used it and I haven't quite figured out what makes it different than run of the mill spray paint.

[Avraham Monina]

There are a few ways to darken wood.

1. Mask with transfer paper. Laser. Spray sealer. Paint with whatever color you want.
2. Engrave. Use liquid shoe polish to darken the engraved areas.
3. LaserDark. I haven't used it and I haven't quite figured out what makes it different than run of the mill spray paint.

Thank you for response, I guess I am looking for something to put on the wood before etching, make it resistible to acrylic paint, then paint and once it drys, rub it off with some sort of other liquid (water or alcohol).

I have purchased the white masking tape, I have had bad experience where the edges not stayed on the wood (or plastic).
Thanks

[Ross Moshinsky]

Thank you for response, I guess I am looking for something to put on the wood before etching, make it resistible to acrylic paint, then paint and once it drys, rub it off with some sort of other liquid (water or alcohol).

I have purchased the white masking tape, I have had bad experience where the edges not stayed on the wood (or plastic).
Thanks

I had similar issues when first color filling. There are a few tricks. The first, and most important, light coats of paint. If you are heavy handed with paint, it will result in the edges lifting and bleeding. The second thing is sealing the wood before painting, as it will help the color pop and not bleed as much. You might have also gotten lower tack transfer paper originally. Getting a higher tack paper can help greatly.

[Gary Hair]

I use powder coat paint for almost all of my paint fill. It's so much easier than liquid paint and the cleanup is almost non-existent. I laser the piece as usual then sprinkle the power over the lettering/graphics, smooth it with a credit card or business card, then laser again. Low speed and low power work best for the powder, otherwise you just laser it away - for my 30 watt, 80ips machine I use 20% power and 70% speed. After lasering I simply vacuum it off, no residue, no chemicals, no mess.

Gary

[Joe Pelonio]

I have done many awards for a local bamboo board manufacturer. They provide the material, finished. I apply high-tack paper transfer tape, vector cut the letters on low power and remove them with tweezers, then engrave. I don't move the material this whole time so it remains in the right position. Then I brush with One-Shot black. Acrylic paint would work too but I still have lots of One-Shot colors from the sign shop days.

[Avraham Monina]

I use powder coat paint for almost all of my paint fill. It's so much easier than liquid paint and the cleanup is almost non-existent. I laser the piece as usual then sprinkle the power over the lettering/graphics, smooth it with a credit card or business card, then laser again. Low speed and low power work best for the powder, otherwise you just laser it away - for my 30 watt, 80ips machine I use 20% power and 70% speed. After lasering I simply vacuum it off, no residue, no chemicals, no mess.

Gary

I googled about Powder coat paint and laser etching, didnt find the procedure, could you tell me what kind of powder? I saw Harbor Freight sells different colors of powder paint, is that the same thing?
Also what will powder coat paint stick to? wood, plastic, metal?
Thank you for the info!!

[Avraham Monina]

I have done many awards for a local bamboo board manufacturer. They provide the material, finished. I apply high-tack paper transfer tape, vector cut the letters on low power and remove them with tweezers, then engrave. I don't move the material this whole time so it remains in the right position. Then I brush with One-Shot black. Acrylic paint would work too but I still have lots of One-Shot colors from the sign shop days.

I etch very small details on bamboo, so masking it with tape and then paining sounds great until I will need to remove the mask, PITA!!
Below is what I etch.
279532

[David Somers]

Avraham,

That is a nice design. Looks like the black is the color of the engraved wood rather than an infill?
If you wanted to do painting, though at least from the photo it doesnt look like you need to, could you give the bamboo a coat or two of a water based sanding sealer and then paint? Then lightly sand off the surface to give you clean edges where the paint and surface of the bamboo meet, followed by a finish coat? That might give you a clean edge without needing to resort to tape. Worth a try if you have a couple of extra cases you could afford to play with.

[Avraham Monina]

Avraham,

That is a nice design. Looks like the black is the color of the engraved wood rather than an infill?
If you wanted to do painting, though at least from the photo it doesnt look like you need to, could you give the bamboo a coat or two of a water based sanding sealer and then paint? Then lightly sand off the surface to give you clean edges where the paint and surface of the bamboo meet, followed by a finish coat? That might give you a clean edge without needing to resort to tape. Worth a try if you have a couple of extra cases you could afford to play with.

Thanks David,
yes that is only engraved not color filled, some areas look darker than others, I hear what you saying and that is kinda what I was thinking as well, to brush something on the case before the etching, something that will make it paint proof, etch it, then paint it, and then once it dries rub off the extra paint where it was not engraved. Also I cant put just any sealer, because the bamboo is very dense and has a natural wax on it, now I use oil to give it a nice look, and use 0000 steel wool to make it smooth, its quite a process.

[Nathan Shaffer]

Avraham,
Laserbits has a liquid mask (liquamask) that you paint on projects. I have used it numerous times on flat projects. It peels off cleanly as long as the material is sealed well and it does a great job on protecting the substrate as long as you use light coats and apply enough power to get through. Which is a problem I have with my 25 watt machine.

V/R
Nathan

[Scott Shepherd]

I etch very small details on bamboo, so masking it with tape and then paining sounds great until I will need to remove the mask, PITA!!
Below is what I etch.


Duct tape will rip all the mask right off in one pull. Give it a try.

[Bert Kemp]

If the ipod case is sealed with a sealer and very smooth you could etch it then use rub and buff. I use rub and buff on a lot of sealed materials , works great. As long as the surface is sealed and smooth it should work also,

[Chris J Anderson]

Duct tape will rip all the mask right off in one pull. Give it a try.

Great TIP -

Thanks for that one Scott...

[Avraham Monina]

Duct tape will rip all the mask right off in one pull. Give it a try.
Good idea, thanks!

[george cashman]

The following website is for laserdarc. They offer a powder, similar but supposedly not the same as powder coat. Works very well for me.
quite easy to use. Laser normally, apply powder and smooth with credit card, re-laser at high speed low power. (I use a 60 watt - setting are 80 speed and 13 power).http://www.smoke-wood.com/SM-wd-21.HTML Hope this helps

[Avraham Monina]

The following website is for laserdarc. They offer a powder, similar but supposedly not the same as powder coat. Works very well for me.
quite easy to use. Laser normally, apply powder and smooth with credit card, re-laser at high speed low power. (I use a 60 watt - setting are 80 speed and 13 power).http://www.smoke-wood.com/SM-wd-21.HTML Hope this helps

Thanks George!

[David Somers]

Avraham,

Don't know if this would work. I don't turn bamboo on the lathe so I have no experience with it in terms of finishes. But on a very oily and waxy wood like Teak I will use oxalic acid to clean the oil off the surface. It comes in powder form in small containers you can get at most hardware stores and you simply mix it with water and apply, then rinse off. Rubber gloves obviously. It is an acid. That seems like it is equal to the work you are having to do now, if not more so I am not sure I would bother. I mention that simply as a way to get rid of the waxy coating on the bamboo if you need to.

Have you tried some different tapes since you were unhappy with the one you tried leaving residue behind? Again, I don't have a laser to test this with, but one that come to mind is the green Frog painters tape. It seals better once moisture hits it and for general painting I have found it is much better at preventing bleed through at the tape edge. How it will react to a laser though I don't know. Could leave a bloody mess. Another tape that comes to mind is the masking tape from Harbor Freight. I noticed Ray Scott at Rabbit Laser recommends it, feeling it has less glue to gum up, and less plastic and more paper in the tape component than other tapes he has used. Obviously test these first.

Another thought that might help if you are doing a lot of this. A sanding planer with a fine grit in it? Since you are doing flat work it would run through a sanding planer well. If you know someone with a small one you could test it out. My thought would be to engrave your stock first without cutting it. Apply your infill. Then when it is dry run it through the planer to take down any infill that has crept out of the engraved area. Then apply your final finish cut it with the laser.

The reason I suggest that is that on the lathe I will do an infill by using a dental drill to "engrave" the piece. Then I apply either a paint or I will fill the engraving with a powdered metal that gets saturated with a super thin cyanoacrylic glue. Obviously that spreads beyond the engraved area. After the glue has cured and while it is still on the lathe I will either use a gouge to cut that down to the surface, or sand it down. The process works well. A sanding planer would let you do that same thing, but you have the advantage of being able to do a bunch of pieces at once provided they have not been cut yet, just engraved and infilled.

Be sure to let us know what you find.

Dave

[Tim Bateson]

I googled about Powder coat paint and laser etching, didnt find the procedure, could you tell me what kind of powder? I saw Harbor Freight sells different colors of powder paint, is that the same thing?
Also what will powder coat paint stick to? wood, plastic, metal?
Thank you for the info!!

Here you go: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showpost.php?p=1430179&postcount=14

[Bert Kemp]

I'm trying some of that harbor freight powder coat now and can't seem to get it to work right.I tried 80 sp 20 pwr and just burnt the powder up, I then tried 100 speed 10 pwr some of it turned black and some there was no effect. I'll keep tring.

[David Somers]

For giggles I contacted the folks at Laserdarc. I was just curious about it. Sounds like the material is similar in MSDS to the power paints others have described here. And I specifically asked if there were concerns using it on anything kids might handle and they said yes. Not for ingestion. So if you are looking to use it on anything kids may get a hold of you should look for another product. Interesting stuff though. Once I have a laser stronger than my pointer I will have to play with it and see how it looks.

Hope that helps someone.

Dave

[Dee Gallo]

I like to go with a more low tech painting solution: just using Testor's enamels (model paint), I color fill the engraving and let the paint set 90%. Then wipe off the excess on a paper towel sprayed with De-Solve-It waterless cleaner. It works best if the bamboo is sealed first, you can spray it with lacquer or poly before engraving so the surface is smooth and sealed.

Here is a sample of some pieces I've done, made from bamboo placemats which I took apart. These come pre-sealed, but the seal was not great, so you can see some places where the paint ran a bit.

[David Somers]

Dee,

That approach looks very nice and simple! I am very fond of overthinking things sometimes. I would have been a good contemporary of Rube Goldberg I think! <grin> Thanks!

Dave

[Bert Kemp]

If the product is so similar to powder coat why is the price so High? I just bought 4lbs of powder coat(red,white black and Yellow) at Harbor freight for under 20$ just to try it out, maybe I'll relabel it Lasercoat and sell it for $70a#.

[Gary Hair]

I googled about Powder coat paint and laser etching, didnt find the procedure, could you tell me what kind of powder? I saw Harbor Freight sells different colors of powder paint, is that the same thing?
Also what will powder coat paint stick to? wood, plastic, metal?
Thank you for the info!!

Sorry, I just noticed this reply to my post. I bought mine at Harbor Freight. I have tried the various colors and found the black to be the most reliable, the others seemed to either vaporize or darken too much to be useful. The procedure is as I posted originally. I have only tried it on wood, but it should work fine on anything you can engrave into and get enough depth to fill with the powder - so metal is out.

Gary

[Bert Kemp]

Dee how deep are your engravings? I've always had trouble wiping off paint. It either doesn't all come off or It comes out of the engraving when I wipe it.
I like to go with a more low tech painting solution: just using Testor's enamels (model paint), I color fill the engraving and let the paint set 90%. Then wipe off the excess on a paper towel sprayed with De-Solve-It waterless cleaner. It works best if the bamboo is sealed first, you can spray it with lacquer or poly before engraving so the surface is smooth and sealed.

Here is a sample of some pieces I've done, made from bamboo placemats which I took apart. These come pre-sealed, but the seal was not great, so you can see some places where the paint ran a bit.

[Dee Gallo]

Bert,

They are not that deep, I use 40 sp/100 p and it's pretty standard depth. I use a silicone squeegee to remove most of the paint but leaving it in the groove. After it sets up 95%, I wipe off more. Let it dry overnight and buff away all you like.

[Bert Kemp]

Bert,

They are not that deep, I use 40 sp/100 p and it's pretty standard depth. I use a silicone squeegee to remove most of the paint but leaving it in the groove. After it sets up 95%, I wipe off more. Let it dry overnight and buff away all you like.

ah ha I think the squeegee is what might make the difference I'll have to try that next time. Thanks Dee

[Dee Gallo]

Bert, using De-Solve-It is key also. It will dissolve oil-based paints like turpentine does, so it will clean off any paint haze left over without touching the finish.

[Bert Kemp]

Bert, using De-Solve-It is key also. It will dissolve oil-based paints like turpentine does, so it will clean off any paint haze left over without touching the finish.

Thanks Dee I'll see if I can find some of that.

[Chuck Stone]

Thanks Dee I'll see if I can find some of that.

I think most Ace Hardware, Tractor Supply, Home Despot store have it.. those are the
places I've picked it up. Often placed where the Goo-Gone, Oops and such would be.
Great stuff.. I love using it in the kitchen too.