crystal settings

[Craig Hogarth]

I've never done crystal before until two days ago and I've had two jobs since. I tried using the same settings as glass, but I'm not getting that white frosty look. It actually engraves away the crystal, leaving a relatively deep impression. I've tried it dry, wet paper towel and dish soap with and without water.

Mind you, this is pretty cheap crystal. Is that the problem?

[Rodne Gold]

Convert the image to a bitmap and make it about 70% grey, engrave like that at about 200 dpi , you might get a better effect.
Crystal does not laser well , its too "pure" , the reason cheap glass engraves well with a laser is due to impurities that have different expansion rates to the actual glass and thus fracture the glass when it gets a laser blast due to differing expansion rates.

[Craig Hogarth]

Thanks Rodne, I would've never figured that out. Does it have to be bitmap or can I just go 70% on a vector image?

[Rodne Gold]

Depends on how your driver handles greyscale..the only thing is to try it and see what works best.

[Craig Hogarth]

Rodne, I've been doing the 70% and it comes our much much better, but I'd like to get it a little whiter if possible. The best settings I've found so far are 100p, 30s, 500 ppi and using wet paper to keep it cool. Do you (or anyone) have any suggestions as to how I may do that? I'm thinking about trying it without wetting it or doing two passes.

[Bruce Volden]

I would not overlook Rodne's 200 PPI recommendation-assuming you still have an area left to test things on!

I seldom engrave glass over 150 PPI.

Bruce

[Lisa Walter]

I did some crystal wedding flutes a few weeks ago that I was scared to death to do......I had never done crystal. These glasses were about $80 a piece. I used the glass setting (epilog) for 600 dpi and they were beautiful. I really didn't expect that since everyone says the cheaper the glass the nicer it engraves but I thought the crystal looked much nicer (this was just text). I used the rotary.

[Bill Cunningham]

I do a lot of small graphics and text on glasses, and usually just put a wipe of thick dish soap, and etch line art at 400dpi, 100%power, and 20-25 speed, 80% black, and always get good results.. Over 15,000 glasses in the last 4 years, and not a single complaint..