Engraving 999 Silver - Fiber Laser

[Matthew Hyduchak]

Hello all, I am looking for your insight for engraving 999 silver with a fiber laser.

What kind of results are you all coming out with? It seems that with any significant relief, there is deposits left in the recessed areas, anyone figure out how to make these shine again without tedious labor?

Also, how is silver speed on 20w lasers? With a mild relief, on a half dollar coin, is it reasonable to expect basic engravings in a reasonable period?

I'd love to see what you guys have been able to produce with 999 silver on a fiber laser!

[Kev Williams]

I've done a few sets of these silver rings-
379747
-the engraving does burn and slag up. I cleaned these using Cameo aluminum cleanser, it helped with the engraving but it dulled up the silver. I did what I could to buff it up some but shows more of a satin finish. My customer was fine with this as they have jeweler (who doesn't engrave) able to polish up after me.

"under a minute" depends on what you're engraving, obviously. From memory these were a 3-angle hatch, 2 heavy/1 'cleanup', x10 passes. They're about .005-.006 deep, about 8 seconds per pass, so a little over a minute each ring. Alignment is the big time-eater... Engraves similar to aluminum as to speed...

[Matthew Hyduchak]

I prefer to do as little as I can with chemicals on metal, because as you mentioned, reactions are all too common. It can be nerve-racking doing larger silver pieces as spot price doesn't make up for mistakes!

I saw some coin blanks recently and started thinking about how I could do short run coin production. I'm just not sure that fiber engraving is the best solution; but making dies for short runs isn't either!

Engraving two sides of a coin; cleaning adheared surface residue and then polishing can be very time consuming.

I really appreciate the pictures, those look nice and clean, great work!