Cake Pan Lid

[Dave Strickler]

A lady wanted a graphic of a shetland sheep dog on her cake pan lid. After quite a a bit of experimentation, This was the result. On my Explorer 30w, I ran two passes at 100P-60S and the same DPI(300) that I scanned the photo. It reminds me of an old lithograph. The photo doesn't do it justice, but if you click on the photo, it gives a little better view.

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[Laura Zaruba]

Wow! I love it! Did you run the photo through PhotoGrav?

[Dave Strickler]

Hi Laura,

Yes, I photograved the picture using the anodized metal settings.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Now that is just plain cool! I really like it!

[Bill Stein]

It really looks cool!

But let me ask a dumb question. Why did you make two passes rather than one pass at a slower speed? You said that you did quite of bit of expermentation, so I'm guessing that the final effect is different. But could you explain the difference in the outcome between the two methods?

Thanks,
Bill

[Lee DeRaud]

But let me ask a dumb question. Why did you make two passes rather than one pass at a slower speed? You said that you did quite of bit of expermentation, so I'm guessing that the final effect is different. But could you explain the difference in the outcome between the two methods?Just a guess, but I suspect that, at low DPI settings, on the second pass the "dots" are slightly offset from the first pass, softening the image slightly.

[Dave Strickler]

Hi Bill,

Normally I engrave the cake pan lids with only one pass when doing clip art and text, and the engraving does not reach the aluminum under the paint, so the engraved areas are a much lighter shade of the paint color. Normally, this looks fine, but when I did this with the sheltie photo, the picture actually appeared too soft, not letting much detail show, so I ran it again without moving it, and the result looked good letting the bare aluminum show through. On a test pan lid, I did try running the same photo with one pass at half the original speed, but the result wasn't as good, with the color of the engraving being uneven, I assume due to the coat of paint being uneven. I guess I could have slowed it down even more to burn entirely through all of the paint, but that would have been as slow or slower than running 2 passes at my original settings. Perhaps with a more powerful laser I could have gotten a good result with one pass, but once I had an acceptable engraving, I stopped experimenting.

Doughmakers is now offering anodized lids with more colors available at a slightly higher price. In my next order they are including some anodized samples, which I am thinking will engrave much faster than the painted lids.

[Rose Hamacher]

Hi all,

I received my samples from doughmakers a while back and tried different settings but never could get anything but a lighter shade of the particular color of the lid. Reading that they now offer anodized lids prompted me to call but I found out you must special order a minimum 60 lids of one color. Hopefully in the future they will stock the anodized lids so this won't be the case forever. So, I just ordered the enameled lids for now. Ryan is very helpful to deal with. I asked him about the 'normal' look for the engraved pan and he said the lighter shade of the color is what to expect, so I feel better about not doing something wrong.

I had actually ordered several pans with lids from Nordic Ware a couple of years ago thinking I could either find some place to anodize them for me or get involved in doing it myself. I did research online and found a place that sells kits, Caswell, Inc. A five gallon kit currently goes for around $300, with a few other chemical things listed that I don't know if one needs, or not. The dyes are sold separately for around $10 which makes 2 gallons. There are many colors offered. That being said, I don't know how many lids a person could anodize with this five gallon kit and if it would be cost effective in the long run. Just thought I'd throw this info out as another possibility.

Regards,
Rose Hamacher