What did you work on today? My laser totally rocked!

[sarah beck]

Here are a few of the rocks I engraved today. My husband brought me some beach rocks to try. We like how they turned out. The engraving isn't deep at all, but the colour contrast is nice.

I have read some of the threads here about engraving rocks and it is interesting that most of the photos in those threads show the engraving coming out lighter than the colour of the rock. I know that those dollar store ones will engrave lighter because of the polish, but other rocks seem to do that too. These are nice and dark. I pretty much have an unlimited supply of these, so if they sell I will be quite happy. If not, I'll put them in my garden and be happy about that too.

So that was my laser project today. I'd love to see what others are working on. Anything fun? Exciting? Right now my laser is still so new that it is all exciting!

[Gary L. Morgan]

Well done Sarah!

Glad you're rockin ;)

Cheers!

Gary

[Clark Pace]

Did you coat the rocks with any thing? I really like the idea.

[sarah beck]

Thanks Gary
Clark, no they aren't coated with anything, they are just as they were found. If you wanted a shiny rock you could probably coat them with a clear acrylic spray, but I like the uncoated look.
Obviously the outcome really depends on the composition of the rock.

[Dan Hintz]

I have to say, Sarah, the contrast on those worked out perfectly.

And it doesn't hurt that I really like geckos... :D

[Glen Monaghan]

I picked up a batch of very similar stones last year, sort of a bluish cast, smooth and flat. I was told they were known in the landscaping industry as "Mexican beach pebbles" although they seem much to large to be called "pebbles", stones would fit better. Anyway, a couple of them produced a similar brownish design but most of mine lasered to a grayish-white. No apparent rhyme or reason why a few darkened but most lightened, but I preferred the darker result because it contrasted better with the light blue of most of the stones. Exception was one or two very deep blue stones that lasered fairly white, which looked quite good.

Oh, and one of the stones produced virtually no contrast whatsoever. I redid it 4 or 5 times, progressively slower, trying to get a visible mark and only ended up actually blasting the design into the surface, resulting in an effect similar to a light sand blasting (no perceptible depth to any of the other stones' engraving).

[sarah beck]

I know I'm lucky that the rocks worked so well. It looks brownish in the photo, but is actually quite a dark black, with kind of a satin matte surface. The nice thing about the designs is that they are the same ones that I use for making my pottery. I sell clay frogs and geckos, moose, puffins etc, so it is nice to be able to re-use the artwork for a new application. It fits with the theme of my pottery shop, which is based around clay animal designs.289870 Here's a photo from a craft fair I did...pretty jammed in, but you can see how the rocks will go with the other stuff I make. Geckos included, just for Dan!

[Bill Stearns]

SARAH -
Good to hear you're doing well! I have engraved those small gray stones in the past. (I believe LaserBits still sell 'em.) At a trade fair 'while back, a nice couple in the booth next to mine were selling "stone enhanced items"; using these same gray stones - each engraved. (collected from the shores of Lake Superior 'round Duluth, MN). Can't remember all the different items - but I remember a wooden desk lamp with the stones applied to it - as one example. Plus, if I remember, they would create a pile - 3 to 5 stones - all glued together - all engraved - as a home accessory.
Just thoughts. Have 'great day!

Bill

[Andrei Georgescu]

Those rocks look awesome! I have only tried bricks - the surface turns grey - and some orange sea snails on which the surface comes out as white.
Well done Sarah!

[Jon Sollee]

I have always wanted to laser a rock with some caveman type images and put them back in their natural state on the beach, hill, ect.. and freak out whoever found them.:D

[Glen Monaghan]

Some I did a while back:

289885289882289883289884289881289886289888289887

[Dave Sheldrake]

289889

My day consisted of 200 of these in 9mm material :( Close to 7 feet long when finished.

cheers

Dave

[Chris DeGerolamo]

Nice rocks!

I've wrapping up a week long Cermark job on SS. (Did you just hear cha-ching too?)

[Mike Null]

Jon Sollee

Now that's the best idea I've heard today.:D

[David Somers]

Jon,

Use some Hawaiian Petroglyph designs and you can have the archaeologists pondering for days as to how the ancient Hawaiians managed to bring a laser engraver to California on their voyaging canoes!

Sarah and Glen! Nice work on the rocks! Those both came out very nicely!!!

Dave....Don't forget....you have a castle to remodel!! you have to stop making trains long enough to finish the keep on your demesne! Pretty work on that engine! 200 of them???? Yow!!

Dave

[Mark Ward]

The rocks look great! :)
What were your engraving settings and did you put anything on the rocks before lasering or were they just straight under the laser to do?

Funnily enough I had actually just before looking at this thread been looking through for a Christening gift idea and one of the gifts I came across was: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/letterfestengraving/product/christening-pebble

I just went back and looked for any other ideas where a pebble is being used and spotted these:
http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/letterfestengraving/product/monogram-pebble
http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/letterfestengraving/product/engraved-pebble

Hopefully they could give you some extra inspiration for possible ideas to do with your endless supply of rocks :)

[sarah beck]

Love that train Dave!
Hehe, I was actually thinking it would be fun to take some rocks to a beach and just leave them for people to find. I too imagined the head scratchings of future archaeologists. I actually have a minor in Archaeology...I would enjoy creating confusion. Glen those petroglyph rocks are pretty cool. I visited the Pech Merle caves in France a couple of years ago and saw the cave paintings there. They are similar. It is so amazing to look at that art on the cave wall and think about those ancient artists.
Mark, I'm not sure of the engrave settings as I'm not near my notebook or the machine but it is painstakingly slow. They just went straight into the laser as is, and right out again. Those initials look to be sandblasted into those notonthehighstreet rocks but I could do them in a similar fashion. My problem is I have learned over the years of having my business that I shouldn't take custom orders. I just like to make what I feel like making! :) iI works for me, waaaay less pressure. That being said, I better get to work!

[Glen Monaghan]

For what it's worth, Mark, those stones are relatively deeply engraved by sand blasting. While you can achieve some depth by lasering, mostly you are just changing the surface color with little or no perceptible depth using a CO2 laser.

[Jon Sollee]

Thanks Mike! :)

[Jon Sollee]

I will look into that! Sounds like a fun experiment.