Engraving Soap

[David Sabot]

Anybody ever engrave soap with a logo? Curious on power/speed settings. I have a 25 Watt Laser.

[Kevin Huffman]

Yes, at a customers location one time we tried soap.
On almost all of the bars the soap just melted more than it engraved.
We started out 100% speed and 20% power but we ended up closer to 100% speed and 80% power.
The hardest parts was finding soap that was flat enough.

[Jeanette Brewer]

We engraved soap for a prospect once. I thought it was cool! In our experience, the letters/engraved logo were "raised". Try it!

It was a neat effect but (probably obvious) is only for looks. The first time the soap gets wet, the cool logo/engraving goes away.

I'll see if I can find our settings for that but as I recall, it was 100% speed and very low power (maybe 10%)?

[David Sabot]

I tried 80 power 100 speed and it definately creates an image, but it isn't very deep. It doesn't seem to get deeper with subsequent passes. Almost like it is melting the soap and refilling in the engraving. It definately doesnt look cool, like the DIAL logo on a bar of soap, it kinda looks like an amateur did it, or somebody using an engraving machine for the first time.

[Rodne Gold]

Try freeze the soap first , we laser Chocolate and Jewellers wax that way.

[Jeanette Brewer]

Not sure it's worth the effort or additional time, but you might want to give it another shot at a very low power setting. Our image came out fine -- just as clear as the artwork -- but, again, was "raised" instead of "melted" into the soap. Someone probably understands that chemical(?) reaction (sounds like it's up Dave Jones' alley to find an explanation as to why it would happen this way) but I don't. All I know is it worked; looked good; made it all the way back to somewhere in Louisiana for the prospect to see it.

[Rodne Gold]

Well the raised effect happens when the stearic acid component forms a bond with the glycol and poymerizes , it expands due to aliphitic subdermal precipitation and this is compounded by a subsidary Fiedel Kraft reaction. The polymerization takes place at just below flashpoint when the collimated and coherent light hits the bonding neutron at 1094nm wavelength.
The other explanation is that the stuff that makes soap bubble is oozing out when you laser it ;)

[Chris Costello]

Try freeze the soap first , we laser Chocolate and Jewellers wax that way.

I've been meaning to throw a chunk of wax in the engraver. Thanks for the Tip Rodne.

Did you have any issues with the wax vapor "gumming up" the laser?

And, if you don't mind me asking, what were you making with the wax?

Thanks,

Chris Costello
Mini 45

[Kevin Huffman]

We had the raising up on 1 of the bars (ivory or dove, I can't remember, its been over 1 year), but it was only 1 that is why I didn't mention it.
I would be interested in knowing if it worked when frozen.

[David Sabot]

Not sure it's worth the effort or additional time, but you might want to give it another shot at a very low power setting. Our image came out fine -- just as clear as the artwork -- but, again, was "raised" instead of "melted" into the soap. Someone probably understands that chemical(?) reaction (sounds like it's up Dave Jones' alley to find an explanation as to why it would happen this way) but I don't. All I know is it worked; looked good; made it all the way back to somewhere in Louisiana for the prospect to see it.

With a low power setting I wasn't even able to see an indentation in the soap. Did you engrave the negative or positive on your soap? You talk about the image being raised. Did you engrave the image, or engrave the negative of the image (does that make sense)

[Jeanette Brewer]

I'm the last person at Engraving Concepts to answer technical questions BUT, it just so happens, I ran these samples myself since everyone else was out of town and the prospect was desperate!

Again, we didn't know the raised "phenomenon" would occur so we were simply running it "normal" (not negative).

I know, for sure, one of the brand names (since Kevin indicated it might make a difference) was Coast (the blue / white "striped" kind). A few days later, though, I went out and bought some little travel-size no-name samples so I could engrave a team logo on some cheerleader gift baskets. Again, the engraving was raised.

I don't think we've tried it since those couple of projects but we never had one that did *not* work. Guess we just got lucky!

[Rodne Gold]

We were trying to see whether we could make masters for the lost wax casting method Jewellers use to make their items.
Neither the wax or the chocolate actually worked *that* well cos albeit they engraved nicely when frozen , they thawed too quick. Ideally one would have to engrave both these materials on something like a freezing plate or with some method that kept em frozen while you are working on them.
I didnt do enough of it to have wax vapour problems .

[Mike Mackenzie]

Try using LAVA this soap engraved very nicely I think it is made without the bubble ingredient's.