Granite Tile at Home Depot

[Lee DeRaud]

Was cruising through today on my way to the paint department for sandpaper...big display of granite tile, including a solid black that looks more like marble: no grain at all on the polished surface. Only $6 each for 12x12, so I took a flyer on a box of 5. Pretty good stuff, based on one (relatively) quick test:
30374
Anybody know offhand if you can cut this stuff with a standard tile saw?

[Keith Outten]

Lee,

Granite cuts almost as easy as black marble on a tile saw. Try a photo and see what the quality looks like on the granite.

[Joe Pelonio]

I use the HD Granite all the time, even at $7.99 it has been the best price around here, most places it was $10. Thanks for the sale info, I'll go get more tomorrow. With photos I have been using a much higher speed/lower power because with any depth the mottled color under the polished black surface blurs the image. I'd love to see you do a sample though, Lee.

[Lee DeRaud]

With photos I have been using a much higher speed/lower power because with any depth the mottled color under the polished black surface blurs the image.I'll keep that in mind. The Aztec calendar was just using the straight 'engrave' settings for marble from my ULS "bible". Probably wouldn't kill me to sacrifice a tile to a set of gray-scale calibration strips...faster than waiting for a chunk of photo to come out.

[Jim A. Walters]

Funny this thread just came up. I ordered a case to play with last night. I haven't seen the black marble at Lowes mentioned in another thread. I will ask on my next trip.

[Clyde Baumwell]

That caught my eye. Where can I get a ULS "bible"?

[John Richards OK]

I am new to laser engraving, I have a Laser Pro Explorer II 30 watt for 3 months now. Where did you find the Actec calendar vector file?

[Lee DeRaud]

I am new to laser engraving, I have a Laser Pro Explorer II 30 watt for 3 months now. Where did you find the Actec calendar vector file?It's not a vector file, it's a bitmap. Google images, search term "aztec" has several versions.

[Lee DeRaud]

That caught my eye. Where can I get a ULS "bible"?It's a Word file of power-level settings for various materials my ULS distributor sent me. Way too big to post/attach here (~800K)...PM me with your email address if you want a copy.

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

Here is my vector Aztec business card.
Help youselves. just change the text

Abdul
P.S: The file is in corel12 format and too big to upload.(850KB).
If anyone wants it, send me an email and I'll attach it back to you

[Kim Maitland]

I'd love to get a copy of that word file too, if you don't mind. Thanks!!

kmaitl1@aol.com

[Lee DeRaud]

Tried some photos on one yesterday, with so-so results. Not the kind of thing I'd prefer for portraits, I think: the reflections from the dark (unengraved) areas are very distracting, kind of like doing a watercolor painting on a mirror. The images look decent but are nearly impossible to photograph, so you're not going to see them here.:p

I think this stuff might actually push me into buying Photograv if I decide to pursue photographic/grayscale work on it (as opposed to two-color graphics)...my brain has trouble working out what direction to tweak the settings when I'm working with a "negative". And I can't just snip off a sample piece to dial in the settings like I normally do with wood.:eek:

Joe, you were right about the settings though. The "book" said 100% power, 60% speed: that worked ok for engraving, but turns out 25% power, 100% speed looks just as good...and gets done twice as fast.:cool:

[Mike Mackenzie]

Lee,

It will be very difficult if not at all possible to get good results doing photos on granite without photograv.

[Lee DeRaud]

It will be very difficult if not at all possible to get good results doing photos on granite without photograv.No kidding: I was able to do it (barely), but it wasn't nearly as easy as on wood, and definitely not fun.

[Jerry Allen]

Reflection on both marble and granite can be annoying if dispalyed in a bright room. A shadow frame can help, but positioning is critical.

One way to overcome the difference between engraving a photo on marble vs. granite is to change the photo from grayscale to line art (blk&wht). Also a white fill can help since the granite substrate is gray as opposed to marble turning white when lasered.

An example follows which uses the same original photo.

[Jim Jobin]

Hello Lee, I'm new to laser engraving and have an entry level 30 watt Versa Laser, I would be most appreciative if you could email me a copy of this document. Jim@TheWritersEdge.com Thanks very much.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/image.php?u=4450&dateline=1162325636 (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?u=4450)Lee DeRaud (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?u=4450) http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif vbmenu_register("postmenu_286118", true);
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Quote:
Originally Posted by c baumwell
That caught my eye. Where can I get a ULS "bible"?

It's a Word file of power-level settings for various materials my ULS distributor sent me. Way too big to post/attach here (~800K)...PM me with your email address if you want a copy.

[Ray Mighells]

I feel like I must have hit the lotto or something. On the day my tile saw came in I went to HD to pick up some black marble. There was none to be had, so I asked the flooring guy for black granite. He showed me 2 boxes of absolute black granite. One box was $32 the other was $4.95. Each box has 5 12 X 12 pieces. So I bought one box of the higher priced, and ordered 20 cases of the other. I picked them up yesterday, and they are identical. I asked why the big difference, and was told it was in the procurement. One was in a giant buy, the other wasn't. Anyhow, for the lower price I ordered another 20 cases which I'll pick up next week. I like the granite better than marble because it is very uniform and I like the way it engraves. Cuts better than marble too. My marble cuts have chipped edges and a couple pieces crumbled at the cut. I've been doing my photos by inverting the greyscale image. I fill the image with black so I'm rastering away everything except the image. The finished engraving looks like it has a grey background. I'll try to post a few pics soon.

[Jim Jobin]

I'll be going to my local HD today to see if they have some of this "big buy" granite available. Thanks much for the heads up. Looking forward to seeing some of your finished work. I've been "crashing and burning" since I first got my laser in June 06 trying to do black marble. I've bought the Laser Sketch and Laser Bits marble and have tried to follow the exact steps but still I can't seem to get a white enough finished product. I've lasered directly from PhotoShop'd grayscales into CD-X3 and also tried PhotoGrav using the latest marble params and STILL going down in flames. I bought some black granite from Laser Tile - http://lasertile.com/ and I like the way the black granite is turning out. Much better than what Laser Sketch is call the absolute black laserable marble. Problem is the sample granite I got from Laser Tile are weird shapes and can't be used for resale until I can convince my wife to allow me to buy a tile cutter (fat chance until I start making more $ with this laser).

Thanks much for helping this newbie out. Can begin to share how many hours I invest on Sawmill Creek. This forum is a Lighthouse!
Jim
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jim Jobin, Owner
www.TheWritersEdge.com (http://www.TheWritersEdge.com)
The "Write" Gift.
Jim@WritersEdge.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Eric Allen]

Tried some photos on one yesterday, with so-so results. Not the kind of thing I'd prefer for portraits, I think: the reflections from the dark (unengraved) areas are very distracting, kind of like doing a watercolor painting on a mirror. The images look decent but are nearly impossible to photograph, so you're not going to see them here.:p

I think this stuff might actually push me into buying Photograv if I decide to pursue photographic/grayscale work on it (as opposed to two-color graphics)...my brain has trouble working out what direction to tweak the settings when I'm working with a "negative". And I can't just snip off a sample piece to dial in the settings like I normally do with wood.:eek:

Joe, you were right about the settings though. The "book" said 100% power, 60% speed: that worked ok for engraving, but turns out 25% power, 100% speed looks just as good...and gets done twice as fast.:cool:

What kind of laser system is that? I'd hate to kill a piece if you're running lower power or have a faster IPS but I'm really itching to try it. Not to mention I foolishly pointed that pic out to the wife so I'm now committed:D

[Lee DeRaud]

What kind of laser system is that? I'd hate to kill a piece if you're running lower power or have a faster IPS but I'm really itching to try it. Not to mention I foolishly pointed that pic out to the wife so I'm now committed:DThat's on a 25W ULS, but no matter what you're using, you're probably gonna have to sacrifice at least one tile to get calibrated, same as any new material. But you can try a lot of different settings doing 2"x2" samples on a 12"x12" tile.

[Lee DeRaud]

Problem is the sample granite I got from Laser Tile are weird shapes and can't be used for resale until I can convince my wife to allow me to buy a tile cutter (fat chance until I start making more $ with this laser).You spent $10K+ on a laser and she's going to give you static for buying a $50 tile saw?!?

Why no, I'm not married...why do you ask?

[Eric Allen]

That's on a 25W ULS, but no matter what you're using, you're probably gonna have to sacrifice at least one tile to get calibrated, same as any new material. But you can try a lot of different settings doing 2"x2" samples on a 12"x12" tile.

Yeah, at least this way I have a good base to start from:) I'm thinking maybe 100speed and 20 power or so

[Ray Mighells]

I'm running 400 dpi; 75 speed; 90 power on the black granite for images other than photos. I am not using Photo grav - simply inverting the greyscale photo. Sometimes I also run the background in the photo. I run the photos between 50 - 75 speed; generally 80 - 90 power. I seldom exceed 90 power for anything. I'm using Epilog Mini 32, 35 watts. I'm also engraving white ceramic tiles 4.25" sq; @ $.14 ea; 6" sq red quarry tile @ $.19 ea, and white glazed quarry tile 12" sq @ $1.29. The quarry tile cuts like metal, so I'm going to shy away from cutting that stuff, On the tiles, I spray on a coat of flat black , so essentially I'm just lasering the paint off. The end appearance is great but I don't know how durable it is. A good top coat of flat or satin poly would make it better.