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Joe Chritz
05-13-2007, 1:26 PM
Any have any experience engraving on Ivory. I am looking to do something similar to scrimshaw.

I am thinking this may be a project to send to an artist to have it hand scrimshawd, but wanted to see if anyone had experience with ivory before I started looking for an artist.

Thanks

Joe

Ken Gastineau
05-13-2007, 5:29 PM
Joe:

Check with the folks at http://www.engravingforum.com/.

There are some world class engravers and scrimshanders there.

Ken Gastineau
Gastineau Studio
Berea, Kentucky

Dave Fifield
05-13-2007, 6:43 PM
I purchased several bags of pre-ban ivory from a museum on eBay. So far I have only done test engraving and cuts, but the results are fairly encouraging.

It engraves to a nice color and contrast and looks good. My experiments show that the whiter the piece of ivory, the darker the engraving will be (for the same settings). I found the best raster setting was P70/S20 with my 45W Epilog.

Vector cutting leaves a blackened edge, but it cuts fairly cleanly at P100/S5/F2500 on about 1/8" thick material. It smells like burning hair (horrible!) so make sure your exhuast is up to the job!

http://www.woodust.com/images/IvoryTests_s.jpg (http://www.woodust.com/images/IvoryTests.jpg)

HTH,

Joe Chritz
05-13-2007, 7:02 PM
The pictures are encouraging.

The design is fairly complex so I plan on doing some tests on corian and see what it looks like.

It is a badge design for a local department that is supposed to go on a set of pistol grips.

Thanks

Joe

Bob Keyes
05-13-2007, 9:56 PM
Joe,

The ivory engraves beautifully. I find that elephant ivory is better than mammoth. It is only intimidating because it is so expensive.

Bill Cunningham
05-13-2007, 10:30 PM
This fellow does some nice laser scrimshaw pistol grips
http://www.jmbdistribution.com/

using ivory like plastic grips from ajaxgrips.com

George M. Perzel
05-20-2007, 6:45 AM
Hi Gang;
I've done quite a bit of ivory- bought it from the same place as Dave. Low speed to cut- engraves well. Here some pics
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

Gary Shoemake
05-20-2007, 3:41 PM
I have used tagua nuts. You can get them in different sizes already sliced. I'll post a picture tomorrow. They give a very nice contrasting mark and are very hard, much like ivory. Have gotten some from ebay and carving supply houses.

Dave Fifield
05-20-2007, 3:52 PM
Nice earings George!