Latest Black Granite with Frame-18x24-Shrimp Boats

[Larry Bratton]

Here is my latest project, now completed and ready to hang. I finally got one for myself after selling a couple while they were still in the laser.
It is 18x24" on black granite. I made the photograph with D70 Nikon close to Beaufort,SC . I also created the SC Palmetto tree as a vector in Corel X3.
The frame is routed MDF with Rowmark Flexibrass cut with the laser. Plaque is mounted in the frame with marine epoxy (no pun intended). The Flexibrass is applied to the MDF with 3m Super 77 adhesive.
Epilog 40watt -100S/45P -the lettering is filled with white acrylic artist paint.

[Phyllis Meyer]

Excellent work Larry! May I ask how much you sell these for? You did a fantastic job!

Phyllis:)

[Larry Bratton]

Phillis:
Thanks! $200 with the frame. $125 without.

[Belinda Barfield]

No fair Larry! Beaufort is in my backyard!:D Just joking.:) Very nice work!! Did you make it to my neck of the woods recently?

[Larry Bratton]

Belinda:
Thanks for the comments.
Actually, I made the photo last summer. We made a trip over to Hunting Island as side trip when we went to Hilton Head one weekend. When I got my laser,I began looking for photos to do and I had this one. It is also a nice color photo and I may try it on some CLTT also.

Yes, we went to the Mossy Oak Music Park Bluegrass festival in Guyton, Ga. for 3 days last week. We'll be coming back again in October for the last one of the year.

[Belinda Barfield]

I'm sure you guys had a great time in Guyton, the weather was beautiful. Maybe I'll get a chance to meet you and your wife when you return in October.

[Brian Robison]

That looks good Larry. Is that at 600dpi?
I'm trying to get photo's that look good with out
shelling out the $450.00 for the photograv software.
I wouldn't mind paying that much if it was something I did often, but it's not.

Thanks

[Larry Bratton]

Brian:
This has been processed with Photograv and it was at 300dpi. You might be surprised how much better your raster work will look if you make that investment. But, if your not into that area, might not be worth it, that's a call you'll have to make. All I know is, it works for me. Good luck with it.

[Larry Bratton]

Belinda:
Yes, the weather was very nice. I was afraid we were going to have smoke from the fires down there. No smoke, but the air seemed to have a fine dust or soot in it. We noticed it on the things left outside. Y'all sure need some water to fall down there. We're getting dry up here too.

I'm sure we would be delighted to have you over to our place in October. We'll stay in touch on it.

[Brian Robison]

Thanks Larry,
I found it on e bay for $395.00. Still .............
Maybe I'll find a deal on it eventually.

[Lee DeRaud]

Two questions:
1. Where do you get black granite in that size? The only thing I've seen larger than 12"x12" is in countertop thickness, and not cheap.
2. How did you get a 18"x24" picture out of a 16"x24" laser? :D

[Belinda Barfield]

Belinda:
No smoke, but the air seemed to have a fine dust or soot in it. We noticed it on the things left outside. Y'all sure need some water to fall down there. We're getting dry up here too.

Fine ash drifts down everywhere. Yes, we most assuredly need some water. Georgia averages 8000 acres per year lost to fire, the Sweat Farm Road fire burned 10,000 acres in one night. Currently we are over half a million acres burned. The east side has 110 miles of fireline - half contained. Sorry, off thread here, just agreeing with what you said about the rain.

[Belinda Barfield]

Two questions:
1. Where do you get black granite in that size? The only thing I've seen larger than 12"x12" is in countertop thickness, and not cheap.
2. How did you get a 18"x24" picture out of a 16"x24" laser? :D

Lee,
Stone Connection in Norcross GA sells 18 x 18 tiles. There is probably someone closer to you. 18 x 18 is fairly common. You will probably see more "flecking" in these tiles and they may not be of a quality that allows for the best laser result. If you ever need standard 3 cm black granite just shoot me a note. I usually have some sitting around on the stone yard.

[Larry Bratton]

Lee:
http://www.lasersketch.com/index.htm It's 10mm and it's around $30.00 if you buy 5.
My laser is an Epilog EXT 36 -36" x 24" table.
Your confusing my Vision Rotary that is 16x24 with the laser

Just checked their price..$34.24 per pc in a case of 5

[Lee DeRaud]

Lee:
My laser is an Epilog EXT 36 -36" x 24" table.
Your confusing my Vision Rotary that is 16x24 with the laser
That sort of thing happens a lot lately. :p

http://www.lasersketch.com/index.htm It's 10mm and it's around $30.00 if you buy 5.
Just checked their price..$34.24 per pc in a case of 5Ouch! That's about double the $/sqft of the 12"x12" I get, and I'm not sure I even want to know the shipping cost. Something to keep in mind, though...thanks!

[Larry Bratton]

Lee,
What is the thickness of the tiles? This stuff is 10mm thick, almost 1/2 and inch. Absolute black. It is very nice material. Where do you get your tiles? Lowes, Home Depot etc? I would like to use some for certain things.

[Lee DeRaud]

Lee,
What is the thickness of the tiles? This stuff is 10mm thick, almost 1/2 and inch. Absolute black. It is very nice material. Where do you get your tiles? Lowes, Home Depot etc? I would like to use some for certain things.It's at Home Depot, about $30 for a box of 5. I thought they were 3/8" (or maybe 10mm), but I just measured my paperweight: 0.42", about 11mm. The only other thing to note is that the edges aren't polished.

[Larry Bratton]

Lee:
I'll try some. 12x12 you say for $6 a piece? Thanks for the tip. When we bought the 18 x 24's we had a specific purpose for them in mind. Only place we could find that size too.

[Scott Shepherd]

I've tried to find Black at Home Depot and Lowes, and they have removed it from the shelves in this part of the country. I did a lot of tile work in the last 2 years and I must have picked that stuff up and looked at it a dozen times, always wanting to use it for something in my house.

Then the laser came, I went and it's all gone, vanished from the displays as well. In fact, no natural stone at all :( So if you can get it, get it while they have it!

[Lee DeRaud]

I've tried to find Black at Home Depot and Lowes, and they have removed it from the shelves in this part of the country. I did a lot of tile work in the last 2 years and I must have picked that stuff up and looked at it a dozen times, always wanting to use it for something in my house.

Then the laser came, I went and it's all gone, vanished from the displays as well. In fact, no natural stone at all :( So if you can get it, get it while they have it!They may have a shelf-space issue at your particular store, but they can probably order it for you. It's on the website, marked as 'in-store' only: granite tile (http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100288690). Looks like the price has gone up since I got my last batch (in February, I think) though...sorry about that, but $9 each is still not too bad.

[Larry Bratton]

Not on the website here, I did a search on their site and got no hits for tile or the like. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Maybe you can buy us some in Ca. and ship it over here to me and Scott..LOL. Might be a business opportunity here.

[Lee DeRaud]

Not on the website here, I did a search on their site and got no hits for tile or the like. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Maybe you can buy us some in Ca. and ship it over here to me and Scott..LOL. Might be a business opportunity here.I think the website defaults to 'online': you have to select the tab for 'online and in-store' before you run the search. I just used "granite" as the search term and the 'Absolute Black' tiles were the first item on the list.

[Larry Bratton]

Lee:
Nope, tried that too. The only thing that closely resembles anything we might use would be a 4" x 20" sidesplash. Apparently the websites are by region. Oh well, I may be able to find some at a specialty store that sells tile. We used to have some stores here called Color Tile, don't know if their still in business or not. Thanks anyway.

[Dave Jones]

I get the same thing here. The 20" black granite side splash guard for $20 is the closest.

[Scott Shepherd]

I've been to 4 Lowes and 4 Home Depots in the area. None have it, where they used to have it displayed and available. I used to see it all the time, but both Lowes and HD in this area have revamped their tiling displays and none of them include that magical black material any longer :(

[Lee DeRaud]

Hmmm....dunno what to tell you.

HD also has a high-end outlet (EXPO Design Centers)...it could be they moved all kind of that stuff to one of those. See if there's one in your area...couldn't hurt to call: http://www.expo.com/stores/storelocator.aspx

[pat bogarin]

hi,if your'e looking for laser engravable plaques try www.Artistic-Laser.com (http://www.Artistic-Laser.com)
they have small and large plaques. including 18x24 with all sides polished and 36x24 with 5 sides polished.

thanks, Pat

[Belinda Barfield]

Thanks Pat, and thanks for the e-mail as well. I have purchased from AL, and like their products. When I need larger pieces I usually just pull something off of my stone yard and have my guys polish the edges.

[Carol VanArnam]

I'd love to try burning a picture on the black granite but I don't have the photoegrav software. Can anyone just post a picture they have converted with Photegrav and have burned on granite. I want to use the file as a test file to run some samples and find the right settings.

I figure if you have run the file and it came out great for you then it would be a good file to practice on. Once I nail the settings then I can work on learning Photograv.

I was thinking maybe I could just sub contract out the part of the jobs that need the files converted in photograv. I love what you guys are doing but I just don't want to buy the software. I wouldn' t mind paying someone to convert the photos for me:cool: :cool:

[Frank Corker]

Hi Carol

Here's Millie - your settings are the same as mine. 300dpi 44 POWER 100 SPEED (don't get them the wrong way around)

Frank

[Carol VanArnam]

Frank- thanks for the file but do you have anything in a size 12? That X3 doesn't fit my pretty little computer...... Thanks for the file to try I'm excited to see what it will look like. I've always wanted to do the black stone but never tried because I didn't have photograv

[Frank Corker]

Sorry Carol - this one is Millie in Corel 12.

[Bill Cunningham]

I've been to 4 Lowes and 4 Home Depots in the area. None have it, where they used to have it displayed and available. I used to see it all the time, but both Lowes and HD in this area have revamped their tiling displays and none of them include that magical black material any longer :(

After reading this thread, I was in home depot this evening just to check, and they had lots of it.. 12x12" absolute black (well, 'their' absolute black anyway) $6.99 (Canadian) The last time I looked and bought some, it was a buck more I think... Now, there is only about a 5-6% difference in the Canadian to U.S. money exchange so prices are starting to come down..(except for the gas of course)

[Scott Perry]

Frank, everytime I try to download this file, I only get 17k. Can you unzip it and post?

[Scott Perry]

Nevermind, I used another computer and it worked.