Need a little bit of help

[Michele Welch]

I'm working on some "shelf sitter" signs that are 1 3/4" tall and 9" wide. They will be made out of poplar and painted and then I will laser out the wording. I don't have any issues when rastering the lettering out, my problem comes when I need to vector the lettering out. I've attached a picture to explain a little bit better of what I'm needing to do. The lettering needs to be "engraved" into the wood versus "etched" into it. How would I accomplish this? I'm still fairly new to my machine and have been able to do some pretty good work with it but this has me stumped. Any help is appreciated. I have a 5th gen FS laser, 45w.

Thanks y'all!

Michele289679

[Clark Pace]

Engraved and etched to me mean the same thing? Do you mean you want the laser to follow the lines of the font? In other words cut a thin line? Also what software are you using?

[Michele Welch]

Engraved and etched to me mean the same thing? Do you mean you want the laser to follow the lines of the font? In other words cut a thin line? Also what software are you using?

Im sorry, I didn't make myself clear. When I think engraved, I think vectored lines and etched is raster filled areas. If you can tell by the picture the letters are all deep vectored into the wood but without leaving any areas still painted. So it's vectoring out the entire letter. I'm just not sure how to set this type of file up to be done. I'm using Illustrator. Thanks

[Joe Pelonio]

That is probably being done with a CNC router, or sandblasting, not laser. You can vector cut the letters part way into the wood by using fast speed/low power after converting them from text to lines, and making the lines hairlines, but you will still have to engrave (raster) them to get the depth. It will take many passes at slow speed and high power to achieve that depth and the bottom of the letters will show the horizontal "grain" rather than be nice and flat.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Vector = follow the path
Raster = back and forth like a printer head

You can vector engrave or vector cut. You can only raster engrave.

Those are most likely made with a CNC router using a V-bit.

[David Somers]

Michele,

Since it sounds like you might not have a CNC setup to do those deep groove letters have you thought about doing an inlay? Your laser lends itself very well to that process. It won't give you that deep grooved lettering, but it will still look sharp and unique.

Dave

[Bert Kemp]

As stated before you'll have to raster the letters , Try about a spd of 10 100 pwr and see how deep you get then just keep ratering to you get the depth you want.