Glass Engraving

[Roger McDowell]

I have been asked to engrave a glass insert for a cabinet door. The image they want looks like intertwining branches. I'm kind of at a loss as to how to try and recreate this image or find one similar. She wants the blank spaces between the branches to be opaque so should I use some kind of pattern or gray scale in those areas?

[John Lifer]

I would combine laser with sand blasting. Mask, vector laser the branches and then peel and blast the in-between....Just my take. You might can raster a pattern too. Window glass is cheap. Get some scrap and try!

[Mike Null]

You can either draw the image yourself in CorelDraw or pay somebody to do it for you. I use Excaliber (William Desrochers) who will probably charge less than $20 for a quality drawing.

I believe he will be off line for a few days.

[Tim Bateson]

I would use a series of vector lines as rastering would be very time consuming.

[Roger McDowell]

Thanks for you inputs. My thought was to combine laser with sandblasting as well but I've never done it before. What kind of mask to use?

[Gary Hair]

For glass you can't beat Ikonics Laser Tape. It applies very easily and lasers with fantastic detail!

[David Takes]

Roger,

I would make sure your customer is clear as to the type of engraving you are offering. She may be envisioning a deeper etched sandcarving, so if you give her a laser engraved glass she will be extremely disappointed.

If she is wanting the areas in between the branches to be opaque, I would recommend a two-stage sandcarving. Sandcarve the branches first to a nice depth, then lightly frost the areas between branches with no depth. You might propose some LED lighting to beautifully highlight the deeper branch carving. That could be a very striking piece.