Best Settings to Engrave Pine?

[Tracey Bakewell]

I have a need to laser engrave a line art type of photo and text onto pine. No, I do not have any other choice of wood, it must be pine. It is to engrave on the martial arts boards that are broken to memorialize the event. I am trying it now and have lots of sample boards to use. So, already reading a lot of posts that Pine is not so good to engrave on, but again, I have no choice on this one. In an effort to save time, anyone having any success on pine and wish to share their settings? :D -- I have Universal 50 watt system.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Tracey;
You are not going to like to hear this but pine engraves lousy-not much contrast. I am assuming you are talking about standard white pine (soft) and not yellow pinw, which is considerably harder and would be a real challenge for the kung-fu guys.
However, not all is lost, assuming you have a random orbit sander or some belt sanding capacity. Laser the wood. Vector cut the same text out of a piece of sturdy cardboard. Position the cardboard over the text, spray some dark color fast drypaint on the letters. Let it dry and then sand off the excess. Yopu can do it without the cardboard but will have more paint to sand off. Really pretty quick as pine sands fast.
Good Luck
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

[Bill Cunningham]

I have had some luck with pine, just the basic pine leftovers ends from 2x12's .. I used 100% power, and 10% speed with a 35 watt .. It cut deep, and left a brown edge on the engraving.. I think a lower more normal power setting would not have given it any colour..

[Bill Cunningham]

I thought I had a picture of a piece of ordinary white pine..
I found it..Here is what I usually get running slow and hot.. (keep the air on it though, that pine sap is what gives it the brown tinge)

[Carol VanArnam]

I make 7 x 18 inch pine signs and sell them for $20 each. They are very popular. It's the kind of sign you would stain and put on the fron of your house so people know your name.

I pick my power setting based on how deep i want the cut out but i pick a slow speed so it actually burns the wood. that gives a good contrast. One idea for dark letters is use blue tape. mask off the area, laser through the tape, paint the engraved area, then peal off the tape. blue tape is your friend....

i router the edges, sand and poof the money just keeps on coming.....

tonight I'm lasering some pine boxes i bought at a craft shop. they will look great. one trick is to raster your letters but then also vector them (don't go to deep with the vector line) do this just to burn the edge of the letters for more contrast. you can't do really complicated graphics line you can on alder. pine is no harder to work with than oak is. i'd never do the aztec calendar on pine but a good larger less detailed graphic or lettering would do great!

you can always raster out just the outline of your picture and don't raster the middle of it. pick a fat line to raster so the image shows up...

[Bill Cunningham]

i'd never do the aztec calendar on pine but a good larger less detailed graphic or lettering would do great!

The original, Aztec (mayan?) Calendar is about 6 inches in diameter, and hangs on my shop wall.. Pine is pretty soft for that much detail, but it certainly shows the customer what kind of detail the laser is capable of engraving.. The engraving depth on that one is about 1mm..

Pine also accepts lineart pretty well, and with a slow speed, gives that nice brown burn around the edges...
Lasering a logo, and other stuff into those Karate boards should work fine.. Just go slow and deep..

[Carol VanArnam]

Bill- I've found that lasering pine produces a lot of sap that needs to be sanded off. When you laser something like the aztec/mayan calendar it's so detailed that when you sand the surface you can damage the artwork. That's the only reason I don't raster deep complicated cuts into pine. I stick to larger less complicated graphics on pine.

Have you tried poplar it's a lot nicer than pine.... and the price is pretty close. PS I like your dog graphic you posted. Looks good.

[Tracey Bakewell]

Thanks everyone for ALL your great suggestions! I've finally reviewed the final outcome with the student's father and he's just so impressed! A BIG thank you to Bill who was so gracious to help out with Photograv since I don't have it yet. I was able to add a very thin vector outline to the entire image that really made it standout on the pine. Now all I really need to do is spend the time tweaking the laser settings until it looks just perfect! I'll post my final product here once I'm finished, thanks again!

[Bill Cunningham]

Thanks everyone for ALL your great suggestions! I've finally reviewed the final outcome with the student's father and he's just so impressed! A BIG thank you to Bill who was so gracious to help out with Photograv since I don't have it yet. I was able to add a very thin vector outline to the entire image that really made it standout on the pine. Now all I really need to do is spend the time tweaking the laser settings until it looks just perfect! I'll post my final product here once I'm finished, thanks again!

Looking forward to seeing the final result Tracey...

[Tracey Bakewell]

Did the final run this morning! After over-coming quite a scare, you can find that thread earlier this AM. Anyway! Thanks everyone for all your suggestions!!!

We haven't sanded it yet, I just couldn't wait for my hubby to do that, just wanted to get the pics up. 1 is the front, the other with my logo is a back.

I'm so excited!!! I have a logo!

Tracey

PS: Sorry, just had to edit this pic real quick. I realized I have the little girl's full name in the pic. She's a minor, just not right for me to plaster it anywhere on the internet! -- also, if any of you do TaeKwonDo, I know this is not a flying jump kick:D

[Leigh Costello]

Congrats on the logo! I did some pine for a craft show this weekend. Little magnets with wording. Used 100 speed and 25 power and lasered twice. Again, no pics and none left to photograph. I must remember to take pics!

[Tracey Bakewell]

Thanks for the speed and power suggestions. I have one more of these to do this week. Hopefully I can whip it out much faster this time!!!

[Vicky Orsini]

I'm so excited!!! I have a logo! Yay! You're official! :D That's a very neat use for that board, and you did a great job on it, too. :cool: