Engraving Wood with Rotary Engraver and Suppliers

[Ryan Barila]

Hello Everyone! I am glad to finally be on this forum. I have a few questions for the experienced people on here :) I have been looking to get into engraving but didn't have the money for the larger laser engraver that I would need and same with rotary engravers. I have been watching eBay for probably a year. I just purchased a Roland PNC 2300a with 40 hours on it. Comes with vise, table, and multiple bits. I paid $1,100 for it. I think that was a fair price? I plain on selling online and looking for my niche.

I just received approval for Johnson Plastics account and waiting on JDS Industries. A few questions I have...

-Can I carve/engrave on wood with this machine since it does 3D? If so, what kind of bit should I use? I would like to do cutting boards and house signs if possible.

-Does anyone know of a supplier other than the ones listed above that offers more gift products similar to Things Remembered? Things remembered has a lot of products that a plate is engraved then inserted into the product.

-If I am able to engrave wood, any way to fill in the engraved text or is there something that I can say finish the cutting board with and the engraved section will darken since it was not treated with anything else? Distributor for cutting boards or make my own?

Sorry for all the questions. Just excited to start :)

[Bert Kemp]

Hi Ryan,
I'm not sure how many rotary engravers we have here, I think most of us use laser engravers. I'm sure we have some but it might take a while for them to see your post. Color filling with a laser we mask our material, engrave it then color fill the engraving and then remover the mask. Not sure if this method will work with a rotary engraver, but it might. As far a suppliers The big box stores have wood as well as craft stores.Wish I could be of more help

[Mike Null]

Ryan

Welcome to SMC. There are a number of us who have rotary machines but I'm not aware of anybody who makes wood products with them. If I were engraving wood I would use my acrylic cutters but I wouldn't expect sharp results. You'll need to find a chart that tells you what size cutters to use with various size letters. Also experiment with cutter speed and engraving speed until you find a combination that works. I would begin with a fairly high cutter speed and fairly low engraving speed.

Have a look at the attached link. http://www.gravograph.us/engraving-products/Engraving_Cutters.php

[Kev Williams]

I just looked up the unit online, has a 12" x 9" engraving area, with a 1-1/8" max material thickness, all within a closed box. You can engrave anything you want with it that will fit in it and that you can HOLD IN PLACE (can't engrave it if you can't hold it down!) -wood, acrylics, aluminum, stainless, brass, copper, steel, cast iron, titanium, gold, silver, pewter--- Your limitations will be your abilities (they get better with time), material size, the motor's power, and the cutter tools. Highly recommended is a tool grinder and learning to sharpen & shape your own tools, but a good grinder may cost more than the machine did. If you go that route, get a diamond wheel and use carbide tools. I've been tool engraving full time for 40 years and I've used a high-speed steel cutter exactly one time.

As for the 3D capabilities of that machine, keep in mind it will only do 3D work on a 2 dimensional (flat) plane, and the cutter tools and their edges create their own limitations. But with time & patience, some pretty cool results can be had.

I've engraved a fair amount of wood, but the only color filling has been via staining, and that usually means the whole piece will get stained-- or sanded afterward...

[AL Ursich]

With cutting boards you can find a thread here and other places on color fill. To go into this with your eyes open, at least think about the liability of color fill and food safe finishes and humans... Sometimes a Laser is dark enough, other times it is not.

As for using the rotary engraver for text and logo's, it is possible. I never did logo's with my small Star 912. I have a CarveWright Tabletop "hobby" CNC that I do text and artwork in wood. The CW is not for everyone and has it's own forum.

I got into the wood carving business hooking up with some friends making Quilt Racks... I did not do enough research and when it really came down to it.... Granny really didn't want to spend any money... Sold very few... The up side was that a person seeing my quilt rack asked for a 6 rail version to use as a CD Rack.... Hence the CD/Book/WINE rack was born... Saving my business....

Don't do wood like that anymore... I have moved to Plastic Tags and Fire Department Status Boards as my mainstay.

My CarveWright is busy cutting sheet stock into tags for a few orders this week. Finally finding a way to support my business.

My Star 912 sits waiting for work.

Good Luck,

AL

[Ryan Barila]

Thank you for everyone that took time to reply. This was a great wealth of information. I will keep everyone posted on my trial and error :) Excited to give it a try.