Lasers -n- Tiles

[Brent Vander Weil]

Ok... been surfing again and got another question :-)

Where do you get the tiles that your can engrave with the laser? Are they somehow different than those you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot?
Are there any special tricks to making the work?

Ya'll can blame Guy G. for this one... He got me thinking about tiles for memorial projects :-)

[Joe Pelonio]

You can use the marble and granite from those places, but when it comes to ceramic tiles you have to buy one and try it. Some work great, others you can run 100% power and speed 1 and they won't make a mark. The ones I found work the best are white and called Ragione, made in Indonesia, both places have them on and off.

[Dave Jones]

There's also these specially coated ones:

http://www.lasertile.com/

And these guys have black marble and granite:

http://www.lasersketch.com/index.htm

Plus http://www.laserbits.com has black marble tiles in a couple of sizes.

[Lee DeRaud]

The lasertile.com tiles really work nice, but they're a bit pricey (IMHO).

Black granite you can get at HD/Lowe's, works great for abstract stuff, so-so for photos. Haven't tried Keith's "secret sauce" yet to see if that makes a difference.

The quality of black marble available seems to be an issue...search on "black marble" in this forum: Keith Outten has had some adventures trying to get it for us.

[Brent Vander Weil]

Well I went to Lasertiles site and they had a sample kit of each type of their tiles for $20 so I figured what the heck might as well give em a test drive at least so I know what they work like in case I need to do a tile project in a hurry... I am going to try to track down some of that Ragione from Indonesia... like to see if I can get a good result with that too...

Well so far I have spent about $100 on materials to cut and engrave and my machine is still about a week out :-)

Sounds like a good survey topic for the forum... How much did you spend on materials BEFORE you actually recieved your machine!!! LOL

[Lee DeRaud]

Well I went to Lasertiles site and they had a sample kit of each type of their tiles for $20 so I figured what the heck might as well give em a test drive at least so I know what they work like in case I need to do a tile project in a hurry... That sample set is a good way to check out their stuff. Just to be clear, my main objection is the quantities required for a regular order, given that I'm not doing this as a business.

[Brent Vander Weil]

Lee-

I got that... and I am not in business... yet... either... I am hoping to turn this into a nice side income and something my wife can do in the summers when she is not teaching... she is the artsy creative type... I am more the figure out how the heck we can do this part of the pair...

[Phyllis Rhodes]

i'm still a week away from HOPEFULLY getting my laser and i can't TELL you how many orders i've placed from laserbits or how much money i've spent at their place or on cermark! but boy will i be ready when it does get here!:)

[Brent Vander Weil]

Phyllis-

You had me at Cermark !!! have not gone there yet... still not exactly sure what it does... I gather mostly for metal etch/engraving assist?

I got the e-mail today... my machine is to ship tomorrow or Thurs. so how ever long it takes to get from Colorado to me :-) Just a real bummer I will not have it over the weekend.... will probably be dragging into work with blood shot eyes from playing laser late into the night!!!!