Darkening an Annealed Stainless Steel piece

[Bryan Cowan]

How can one darken the annealed graphic on a stainless steel piece? On the FiberMark 20W, the settings were:
10S, 100P, 60kHz, 0Fo

It looks a little on the "charred"/burnt side. It's dark, but I'd like it darker.

Should settings be changed? If so, to what?

Or

Could I apply something to the stainless steel after annealing (like shoe polish) to darken the image?

Thanks

[Mike Null]

Have you contacted tech support for your machine. Their applications dept may be able to help.

[Rodne Gold]

You can probably get a very dark black mark by applying cerdec or another metal marking paste prior to lasering.
Dunno what you can apply after lasering or settings to get it darker.

[Bryan Cowan]

It may just required a couple passes. We'll see.

[Bill Cunningham]

There are not a lot of folks here with fibermark info.. The machines are pretty new yet, and rather pricey & limited in the materials they can handle.. But the ones they handle they handle very well.. I would assume most buy them for metal marking in an industrial environment rather than for all around laser work..

[Roy Brewer]

How can one darken the annealed graphic on a stainless steel piece? On the FiberMark 20W, the settings were:
10S, 100P, 60kHz, 0FoIt's dark, but I'd like it darker. Bryan,
Try decreasing your Frequency(25-30kHz). The less frequent the pulse the higher the "burst" engery and this tends to make a darker mark on most metals. (Check your manual's suggestion in Section 7 "Freqency")

I'm not sure you can beat Rodney's suggestion (if you don't mind applying CerMark before lazing).