How deep is deep

[Trey Tull]

I’m trying to deep engrave aluminum but struggling to make it happen. I read the thread a few weeks back talking about deep engraving aluminum and I am curious, how deep is deep. .010”, .005”, .003”?

Any pointers to engraving aluminum?

[Gary Hair]

deep is what you need it to be. For firearm engraving, serial numbers, etc., it needs to be .003 minimum. To paint fill you will need more. For engraving you want to look deep it really depends on the material and what look you want. Deep could be .001, .01, .1, etc. I don't have a MOPA machine so my settings won't really apply, however, I use 100P, 250S, 30F for hogging out material, then I'll use 80P, 500S, 40F to clean up the bottom. Also use alternating hatch angles to help keep the bottom smooth and also to remove material a bit faster.

[Kev Williams]

I've found that aluminum has a tendency to melt rather than cleanly ablate if you get too tight on the hatch, too slow on the cut, etc., and you end up trying to remove the same stuff over and over... Experiment with fairly wide hatch routines and auto-rotate (which I set at 17° so that rarely if ever does one cut routine repeat in the same place)... then use finer hatch runs for cleanup-

I've also found that hardened tool steel is easier to get deep that aluminum...

[John Lifer]

And it seems to me to be related to the grade of aluminum. I use metric and hatch most at .03mm, but one thing that works well if you REALLY need to go deep on aluminum is to add a WOBBLE.
Play with those settings (under the advance setting tab below power settings) it seems to really help hog it out.

[Trey Tull]

Thanks for all of the replies. The customer needs some text engraved into some 1/4" anodized aluminum. Like a dummy I failed to ask what alloy of aluminum nor what type of anodizing. I'll call and ask tomorrow. They didn't have a depth requirement, just didn't want it to come off, so I told him I'd engrave a few different depth and let him pick.

I'm just practicing on some 6061.

[Gary Hair]

Is it colored? If so then you don't want any depth at all, you just want to bleach away the color.

[Trey Tull]

Is it colored? If so then you don't want any depth at all, you just want to bleach away the color.

It’s a medium grey color. They want some depth to it.

[Gary Hair]

It’s a medium grey color. They want some depth to it.

Make sure you let them know that any protection that the anodizing gave them is negated when you engrave through it. It may not matter but I would be sure to let them know.

[Trey Tull]

Make sure you let them know that any protection that the anodizing gave them is negated when you engrave through it. It may not matter but I would be sure to let them know.

Gary... Thanks for the heads up. I will make sure to mention that.