Marble Tile

[Greg Sloan]

Hi,

New to the engraving world. I'm struggling with photo's on marble and granite tiles. I don't seem to be able to get the clarity that I have seen on this site. I have an M-300 40 watt universal laser. I use photograv. I generally run my stuff at 23 power and 100 speed. This morning I ran a photo on granite using 200 dpi and 250 ppi @ 25 power and 100 speed. I'm also using a 1.5 lense. It came out alittle better but still not what I'm looking for. Anyway, I have read afew threads in here on floor tile versas the stuff from laser sketch. Can someone please turn me on to a supplier of marble tiles.

Thanks,

Greg Sloan

P.S. This site is great. It will take me weeks to read every article in here.

[Dave Jones]

Can someone please turn me on to a supplier of marble tiles.

My laser won't even arrive for another week, so I haven't tried it out, but I just ordered some black marble tiles from Laserbits that look real nice.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have 45 watts (Epilog) and use 90 speed 20 power for photos at 400 dpi. You did invert so that on black tile what's etched is what was white in the photo? I don't use photograv, and it may take longer but use Corel 12 Photopaint to get it ready, adjust contrast/brightness and invert.

You can't use too much power on granite photos or you get down to the mottled grey underneath and that clouds up the image. I use 12" tiles (marble and granite) from the big places or tile stores. Some photos are just not going to work because of the lack of contrast between the subject and background. For lettering or clipart I use 100 speed and 75 power.

[Greg Sloan]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the info. Photgrav inverts for me. My tiles just don't seem to be as white as I have seen in this forum. I believe it is because of the marble I'm using. Even at 23 power, it comes out grey. If you hold the tile in the right position it almost seems to disappear altogether.

[Greg Sloan]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the info. Hope your new adventure goes well for you.


Greg

[Lee DeRaud]

Those settings sound way high for granite: that's about what I'm using on a 25-watt ULS.

[Ginger Bosak]

Being a new laser owner, i am excited that I can reply to a board posting.
I have learned a great deal from these boards.

I have a ULS 30 watt unit.
For Granite I do 30power and 100 speed with 500dpi
For Marble I flip the process, 30 speed and 100 power with 500dpi.

Ginger

[Joe Pelonio]

Those settings sound way high for granite: that's about what I'm using on a 25-watt ULS.

Lee,

I've just double checked, and while I do have those settings on my "rule of thumb" chart some of the actual jobs I have done on marble I used as little as 15 power. I think less is better on the power, maybe he should
try 10-15 power to see what happens. I rarely just run a job, I keep an extra tile or two around to run a small "cross section" of a new photo to fine tune it before doing the job.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Greg,

With a 30 watt tube we would use the following power settings

Marble photo engraving 22 power 65 speed image density 4

Granite 14 power 80 speed image density 4

To get really white engraving use a white paint it enhances the engraving really nice.

Lasersketch has the ink on there site but you can get it directly from this place http://www.baypressservices.com/ search for Van Sol CML Oil Base Plus use the opaque white.

I would tend to guess that most samples shown here use some sort of enhancer to make the engraving really white. I may be wrong but because there are so many different suppliers of granite and marble and there suppliers change often as well. The ink enhancer is the way to go.
Especially if you are using lasersketch marble or any granite.

Also make sure that your photograve is configured properly to the "Model", "power", len's, and DPI output. This could make all the difference in the world on how photograve processes the graphic.