Problem Engraving Ceramic Campfire Mugs

[Tracey Bakewell]

I am having a very hard time getting through the depth of the campfire mugs offered by discountmugs.com. I originally told my customer I could do this only because discountmugs offers laser engraving as an option for those mugs. I even called them to verify when they run these for customers they are doing it with a laser engraver... but of course they would not offer their settings :)

Anyway, has anyone else worked with these mugs? It is this one: https://www.discountmugs.com/product/1300-13-oz.-tin-style-camper-campfire-logo-coffee-mugs/

And I've attached the most recent photo of how they are coming out. I've been willy-nilly throwing different settings at this, starting out with lighter multiple passes to break through. And at the end, this was still with 100% power, speed of 10, and 1000 dpi and 1000 ppi. The photo is a little blurry so the engraving looks out of focus worse, but it definitely doesn't look good.

I'm running a second mug. I have no problem doing multiple passes, but the troubleshooting is horrible and I don't now what angle I'm going. I've even tried changing the focus to closer to help when the depth changes (maybe I shouldn't worry about that???)

ANY help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thank you all so much!
Tracey

[Tracey Bakewell]

And here is the second mug that I was more aggressive with... I think too agressive as the levelness of the ceramic is very bumpy now. I'm going to keep trying... any help though :)

[Mark Sipes]

Give up. I am fairly sure those mugs need to be sandblasted.

[Tracey Bakewell]

Give up. I am fairly sure those mugs need to be sandblasted.

Well, I know these aren't for me in the future, but I need to somehow limp through this one... I'm trying multiple passes right now with the same settings to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of the tootsie pop :)

I'm just curious if anyone else has tried these. I did find other posts having the same problem, so now I know... the glaze is too thick to get through, and sand blasting won't do the trick on these because of the fine text and detail :(

[Gary Hair]

and sand blasting won't do the trick on these because of the fine text and detail :(

I don't see anything in that design that won't sandblast, I've done finer detail before and it came out fine.

[Keith Winter]

Not sure how they are lasering those, seems awfully tough to laser. Most laserable stuff has a thin coating on the surface you laser through and those look like they have a very thick coating. Either they are using a much more powerful laser, or more likely they have another version of the mug they use when someone orders a laser job would be my guess. Not really sure how they are doing it, looks pretty rough where you removed the surface. As others have suggested you might need to sandblast it. You could also try color fill, might make it look more like you were expecting.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Too much power is getting into the material, that white halo is subsurface fracturing at the edges. If you need depth then it's going to be blasting like the guys said, limping through them is going to be difficult. The problem will be variation in the material you are hitting with the beam making consistency a big problem.

[Mike Null]

The basic problem with laser engraving mugs and blasting as well is the variable depth of the glaze. All of the mugs I've engraved had some areas where the glaze was thicker than other areas resulting in the need for multiple passes. That also affects sandblasting. I stopped engraving them as I felt there were too many sharp edges as a result of the engraving. Edges that can cut a finger or that can be easily chipped.

[Jay Selway]

Are you using the rotary attachment?

If not, try using a 4" focal length lens. You might be losing focus if you are trying to hit the deeper parts on the right and left.

[Tracey Bakewell]

Are you using the rotary attachment?

If not, try using a 4" focal length lens. You might be losing focus if you are trying to hit the deeper parts on the right and left.


Yes, I am using the rotary attachment. Unfortunately, I only have a 2" lense, that fits most of my needs, on these occasional "special" projects, I find where I should just say no, is when I lean about these other fixtures I need. I was, earlier, pausing the machine, and bumping the focus a tiny bit closer becaue I thought of that, still didn't really make a difference :(

With everyone's help here, I am still limping, trying to still tell the customer no, but their event starts Wednesday. I've even offered to ship back to discountmugs for them and tell discountmugs to go ahead and engrave them, but there's just no time.

I'm starting to see that if I do too many passes, then the ceramic starts to darken, so I'm still trying to find that sweet spot, where, even though it's bumpy, I just can't tell when I've broke through the glaze. In another post, that setting "copies = 10" has REALLY helped. I can just walk away and come back when it beeps, to force me to not interrupt it to see what happens after so may passes each time.

I'll definitely post when I start getting more regular results, but for now, still limping, and it's starting to hurt really bad.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Surface marking on ceramic and actual depth engraving are two very different things Tracey, you may well hit that perfect spot for one mug only to find the next one at the same settings is totally different (see Mikes comment about variation in glaze depth)

If you can find an "out" I walk away from this job if I were you :(

[Tracey Bakewell]

That is definitely what I'm finding, I totally understand. Monday, I intend to give them what I've completed and say, that's about all I can do at this point.

[Tracey Bakewell]

SHE SAID IT IS OK TO STOP!!! :) THANK GAWD!!!

I am SO Relieved!!!

Once I explained everything down to the part where I think I'm even ruining my machine (as far as belts and bearings) let alone the amount of CO2 power I'm having to run all day, she said just stop. I offered to send a letter of apology on my behalf since they won't have their mugs at the event and she said it was ok.

Thank you everyone for your input, without your help, I wouldn't have been able to have the right conversation with my customer. I hope that others can search this thread for ceramic mugs and find the level of difficulty I had before they even say yes!

[Chuck Stone]

I'm wondering if they even shipped you the right mugs..

[Tracey Bakewell]

I'm just wanting to have them "engrave" them and see what theirs look like at this point! I will post back the final final out come of this, but for the past 3 days of only getting like 20 mugs done (out of 72) I'm done!!!

[Keith Winter]

I'm wondering if they even shipped you the right mugs..

Those were my thoughts exactly Chuck. Wondering if they have a different version for laser engraving.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I'm thinking the customer is looking for tactile depth (fractions of a mm) and the mugs are designed for surface *marking* rather than actual cut in, engraving.

Bit like doing glass at high power to get depth, it never ends well :(

[Joe Hillmann]

It's too late to help you but I do that type of mug quite often but with a YAG. Even with that I find the thickness of the glaze is very in consistent.