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Steven Wallace
10-11-2007, 6:47 PM
Has anyone ever laser engraved on one of these autograph footballs? I have done baseballs before but they were leather. I have had a request to do footballs and am not sure what they would look like if you can do them. Any suggestions.

Bill Cunningham
10-11-2007, 9:56 PM
I did a bunch of footballs for a wedding (yep!!) last year..
They looked like leather but they wern't .. Some kind of vinyl I presume.. The groom just wanted the names of his groomsmen engraved into the surface.. The air was taken out, and a little duct tape was used to bind them flat, I stuck them into a a piece of styrofoam insert from something.. They were just jambed in to keep them steady during engraving, and the foam had a 90 deg corner so as long as I got his balls pretty close to the same place every time (Hmmm) .. They would engrave all in the same place.. If you want, I can post a picture tomorrow sometime.. Their not on this computer..

Steven Wallace
10-11-2007, 10:17 PM
Bill, Thanks for the info and suggested application for centering the balls. I had planned on deflating the balls prior to engraving. Couple of things, I would appreciate seeing the photo. Secondly, I have an Epilog 35 watt machine and if you could suggest the settings that you used, it would help me from having to start from scratch. Again, Thanks for the help.

Steve

Vicky Orsini
10-12-2007, 6:22 AM
I thought lasering vinyl (or anything with vinyl in it) was a big no-no? :S

Steven Wallace
10-12-2007, 8:10 AM
Vicky,

From what I have read you are not far from wrong but the key is what is the vinyl made of. Vinyl made from PVC is a no-no. Vinyl based on Polyester is not such a no-no if done in small quantities. I don't plan to do much in the way of vinyl but hate to turn down any work ;) . In fact, I probably wouldn't have taken on this job or tried vinyl had it not been for a friend wanting awards done for his kids peewee football team. He already had ordered the 50 footballs :eek: . Thanks for your comment.

Steve

Bill Cunningham
10-13-2007, 12:12 AM
I also have a 35watt Epilog.. I'm pretty sure I used about 100 speed, 80 power @ 400 dpi .. If you don't get a good melt, you can go up or down from there.. It's a place to start
There was no colour change just melted the names in..

Steven Wallace
10-13-2007, 1:08 AM
Thanks,
The person I am doing it for got footballs with the white autograph panels on them. I assumed that it would not change color but just melt the vinyl in the area laser fired on it. Your information confirmed that. I will mask them first and then use some type of permanent marker to color the area engraved. Thanks for the info and the assistance.

Steve

Steven Wallace
10-13-2007, 6:09 PM
Bill,

I snagged my son's autograph football from when he play Pop Warner football. It is a Wilson brand football (made in USA, not China) and has three white signature panels. I just tried to put my company name on it on one of the white panels. (35w Epilog mini 18, Speed100, power 40, 300DPI). I figured I would try half your power setting to start with. To my amazement the engraving was sort of like a copper or bronze in color. It looks really good on the white background. Once I do some of the presentation balls I will post pics on this site. Thanks again for the initial information.

Steve

Bill Cunningham
10-13-2007, 11:02 PM
I think the ones I did were Wilsons too .. No white panels tho, and probably made in China... Must be made from those new fangled Synthetic Pigs..

Steven Wallace
10-19-2007, 5:03 PM
Just some pics to give you an idea of how the project went. Settings were 100sp and 45power on a 35watt Epilog mini 18

Mike Null
10-19-2007, 6:05 PM
Steve
That's remarkable. did you use a colorfill after all? If so how many?

Steven Wallace
10-19-2007, 6:35 PM
No colorfill, that is a straight lasering result. That image took just over a minute to do and was done from a jpeg provided by the customer. There are 3 white panels on the ball but I am only using 2. This ball will be given to the team sponsors and on the second panel will have the team roster and "Thank you for supporting our Fall 2007 Season" in a script font. It will be the same coloring as the logo and Fall 2007 on the main panel. Because of the age of the kids, I will post another pic with the Thank you but before I add the roster. Just imagine the rooster being on the left and right of the inscription.

Steven Wallace
10-19-2007, 10:48 PM
No colorfill, This was just the way the vinyl panel turned once it was lasered. It cleans up real nice too. Only thing I had to do was make two passes. One focused for the lower part of the curve of the ball and the second pass was at the top of the curve. I first set the correct focus for the top of the ball and the gave the table 20 bumps up and made a run. Then I bumped the table down the 20 steps and ran it again. I never touched the ball after the first run so that it did not lose registration. Total time about 2min and 40 sec for both passes.

Bill Cunningham
10-20-2007, 10:57 AM
They came out looking really nice.. And, a very nice bonus for the natural colour of the panel to work out so well...
You lasered that directly from a 24 bit jpeg in in clipart mode? or did you convert it to a 8bit gray scale (what dpi), or run it though photograv?

Steven Wallace
10-23-2007, 7:57 PM
No Colorfill. I was given a jpeg file of the team logo. I converted it to 8 bit grayscale in corel and did not use Photograv. In addition I did not deflate the balls but did them in less than full inflation. I used the table height to focus on the deepest part of the curve first (moving the table up) and then moved the table down to focus on the peak (top) portion of the image.