Laser engraving on Pearl Shell

[sunil jain]

Hi,

One of my customer needs to engrave on pearl shell. Is it safe to use laser on shell. I don't know what the material is.

Assistance is needed from anyone doing this type of work.

Thanking you.

[Wil Lambert]

Hi,

One of my customer needs to engrave on pearl shell. Is it safe to use laser on shell. I don't know what the material is.

Assistance is needed from anyone doing this type of work.

Thanking you.

Yes it is. I make logo cutouts for a guitar maker all the time. The stuff stinks. you will need to play to get your settings correct.

Wil

[Mike Null]

I cut abalone which, I believe, is similar. I use a lower power and many passes on the theory (mine) that overheating will cause it to fracture.

[sunil jain]

Thank you Wil, Mike for your reply.

I have 25 watt spirit. if you are using the same model can you suggest me the power and speed setting.

I tried at power 100 and speed 8 but the depth is not sufficient. Also white powder ash sticks inside graves.

What setting is used to acheive the best result.

[Mike Null]

Since all machines seem to perform differently I suggest you experiment with reducing the speed and increasing the frequency until you see some progress.

I also found that every piece of material behaved differently so there is no easy answer to your question.

[sunil jain]

Will:

Yes it is. I make logo cutouts for a guitar maker all the time. The stuff stinks. you will need to play to get your settings correct.

Wil

you wrote you cut logo cutouts. do you through cut or engrave. Also what is the thikness of material you use.

I got sample 2.5 mm thick. It is very hard to engrave. and cutting is impossible as at very low speed material is damaged.

[Mike Null]

The material I used was about 1.5mm or .050".

I used many passes and not at really slow speeds to avoid damage to the material. You will cut through some of the material then have to make additional passes to cut through the rest.

You may find that making the material thinner before cutting is a better option.

I have now made three guitar inlays which all turned out well but do not take this to be expert advice.

[Wil Lambert]

Will:


you wrote you cut logo cutouts. do you through cut or engrave. Also what is the thikness of material you use.

I got sample 2.5 mm thick. It is very hard to engrave. and cutting is impossible as at very low speed material is damaged.

I did not have good luck cutting the thicker pieces. Engraving was is fine. I do take a few passes with using an air blast between engraving to blow the chips out. If you don't blow them out you will just re-engrave the chips.

To cutout the logos I use MOP sheets. They will cut excellent . I even cutout text that is fairly small. The text is about .225 tall.

Wil

[sunil jain]

Thank you Will. I got best result in multi passes. but it simply increases the production cost as well as time.

In my place, the pearl shell available in tons in pearl industry. Any good and application idea to make profit from those wastes.