Check This Out!

[Eric Allen]

I'm betting your first thought looking at this is out of focus and burned the heck outta the tile, right? It's a lot more unlikely:) That white is actually a background Silestone piece. What you're looking at is the glass lid of the laser! It's burned at least 1/4 the way through, luckily I never walk away and I'm always observing the process. Got it shut down as fast as I could when I realized what was happening. The laser reflected off a piece of stainless, never happened before, can't believe it did this kind of damage in such a short time. It happened in about 2 seconds. If you had bet me last week this could happen on such a low power machine.......It does underscore why you shouldn't walk away though, if I had, I may have come back to my ceiling on fire:)

[Craig Hogarth]

how long did it take for that to happen?

[Shane Turner]

Thank you for this lesson Eric. I'm one of the guilty ones who walks away sometimes. I won't be doing that again.
Sorry to see your machine looking so poorly though!

[Eric Allen]

how long did it take for that to happen?

Very short, within 2 to 3 seconds. I was right on top of it once I saw the black forming on the glass.

[Frank Corker]

Hey Eric, you aren't the only one, I have a similar mark on the underneath of mine but I was being stupid! It was in the first couple of days of having the machine where you experiment on just about anything that doesn't move. I had a cupcake tin and I wanted to know what would happen if I hit it with a high intensity beam. Now I know, it bounces off and back up onto the safety glass. I too never walk away, this is why, think of it as a blessing. Another item to be aware of. It is possible to remove the safety glass, rub the area with very fine wet and dry and polish it out.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I got a pair of safety googles with my laser. Have yet to do anything like that to them.

They are still safely stored out of harm's way, in the wrapper....

[David Epperson]

I got a pair of safety googles with my laser. Have yet to do anything like that to them.

They are still safely stored out of harm's way, in the wrapper....
I think it's Edmunds Scientific that has those warning labels that say "Do not look directly into laser beam with remaining eye".

[Joe Pelonio]

This conforms what some of us said in the old controversy about whether or not to engrave bright metal or mirror, it does reflect back in at least some cases, so best to avoid it altogether.

[Eric Allen]

Hey Eric, you aren't the only one, I have a similar mark on the underneath of mine but I was being stupid! It was in the first couple of days of having the machine where you experiment on just about anything that doesn't move. I had a cupcake tin and I wanted to know what would happen if I hit it with a high intensity beam. Now I know, it bounces off and back up onto the safety glass. I too never walk away, this is why, think of it as a blessing. Another item to be aware of. It is possible to remove the safety glass, rub the area with very fine wet and dry and polish it out.

I wish this could be polished out. It blasted right through the glass layer and into what I assume is plastic inside. It's all bubbled, burned, and cut into somewhat. Still can't believe how fast it happened. Strange, 'cause I've done stainless with no problems before, but this WAS a higher polish level, so I suppose it ranks up there with doing a cupcake tin:)

[Eric Allen]

I got a pair of safety googles with my laser. Have yet to do anything like that to them.

They are still safely stored out of harm's way, in the wrapper....

Hmmm...Maybe I should send you my address...:D

[Eric Allen]

I think it's Edmunds Scientific that has those warning labels that say "Do not look directly into laser beam with remaining eye".

I love that! Maybe I'll get one to put over the spot:D

[Bill Cunningham]

I love that! Maybe I'll get one to put over the spot:D
I think I have the .cdr file for this one.. I have it stuck to the front of my machine..

[Frank Corker]

Ha ha ha - excellent! :D

[Scott Shepherd]

I read it not so much he was lasering the stone, but rather he used that as a background so the burn mark would show up in the photo. I could be mistaken, but that's how I read it.

[Eric Allen]

Eric,

What color SileStone? I have worked with SileStone since 1998 and I'm not aware of any "color" with stainless in it. Several of the colors do use recycled glass and mirror chips. Is it possible the beam hit a mirror chip, instead of stainless?

It was just a background so you could see the spot. It would have been a very boring picture otherwise:) I love the little angel tag, I keep meaning to have the Mrs. give it a look:) I haven't been working a lot in Silestone, though I'd kind of like to. I've got a few hundred of those pieces around and it can make for interesting stuff, though color filling seems to result in little bits of rub-n-buff that I can't get out of the surrounding material, pesky pores:) Maybe you have a hint for that?

[Belinda Barfield]

It was just a background so you could see the spot. It would have been a very boring picture otherwise:) I love the little angel tag, I keep meaning to have the Mrs. give it a look:) I haven't been working a lot in Silestone, though I'd kind of like to. I've got a few hundred of those pieces around and it can make for interesting stuff, though color filling seems to result in little bits of rub-n-buff that I can't get out of the surrounding material, pesky pores:) Maybe you have a hint for that?

Scott and Eric,
Sorry, misread the post. Thanks for correcting me.

Eric,

Don't have any hints for working with color fill. Have you tried using a paste wax around the area? That might fill in the surrounding pores. Wax shouldn't, I can't way won't, change the color of the Silestone. It can darken the Silestone if the piece has faded. The quartz surfacing materials (SileStone, Cambria, Zodiaq, etc.), as you probably know, are engravable. The colors with the high quartz content don't engrave evenly though. The pieces of quartz and the surrounding resin definitely burn at different rates.