Lasering Jade?

[James Meagher]

Did anyone ever try lasering Jade? A customer asked me yesterday. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Joe Pelonio]

That's one of those things that most of us have not tried, because it's too expensive to experiment on.

My daughter in college took a Geology class and she says that it's harder than glass, and since lasered glass is sort of a micro-shattering I'd guess that jade wouldn't be a good material for laser engraving. Hopefully someone knows for sure.

[James Stokes]

I have a big chunk of pink jade that I have wanted to do something with, but have not got around to it. Why don't you do it and report back with the results.:)

[Neal Schlee]

We've been lasering jade for 25 years. It's lasers much like marble, glass or granite. The laser creates small fractured fragments in the surface, we generally lightly scrape this away after engraving, leaving a light gray engraved area. For fine detail we place a wet paper towel on the area to engraved.

True jade is fairly hard, 8 on the 1-10 diamond scale, it can vary in color from yellow/green to black.

Neal