Making a Sign with Laser

[David Sabot]

Iam having an Open House and want to create 15 or so signs directing people. I got some pre-made ones from Home Depot and they are small and don't provide enough room to add information. I have a 25 watt laser engraver and was wondering i there is any material that I can apply to some plasitc corrugated board, laser my letters, then weed the rest out. Does anything exist that would be quick and easy?

[Shaddy Dedmore]

Why can't you use wood? Rowmark Lasermax would look fantastic. But you'd have to be general on wording for re-use.

Go buy some 1/4 MDF or Baltic Birch (hmmm, 25 W, maybe go for 1/8" Baltic birch ply so you can cut it too). And make some signs with that. Be creative, the sign doesn't have to just point to you, it can showcase what your laser can do. Try putting a photo on it (use photograv or black/white dither/halftone) Cut it in an interesting shape, line art...

Shaddy

[Keith Outten]

David,

Laser Lights is a material that comes to mind for your sign project. Only 0.004" thick and adhesive backed you can engrave it and stick it to any number of substrate materials.

Shaddy had some good advice, you don't have to purchase material for temporary signs, plywood will work just fine. You could also use scrap clear acrylic, use a mask to engrave the front side and engrave your text then spray paint the back a contrasting color. You could engrave matt board as well. Another option is to use sheet metal, paint the base coat then mask and engrave before tou paint the text. Put two signs together if you need more space, you can laser cut two matching sign shapes and double your available sign space.

Look around the house, there are probably hundreds of materials that you could make signs from.

[Joe Pelonio]

Use 1/16" black or painted acrylic, matt board as Keith suggests, or
even colored paper, and vector cut the letters. Then just glue them on to the corrugated.