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View Full Version : Best Shoes to laser engrave



Zac Altman
05-06-2008, 4:56 AM
So what brand/type of shoe is best to engrave?
or...
What is the best material (that is commonly used in shoes?) to engrave?

I want to try this out!

Luke Phillips
05-06-2008, 5:17 AM
Try any leather - I've done soft leather desert boots before and they look okay.

Zac Altman
05-06-2008, 5:41 AM
Im not really that into leather, but i will try it anyway...

Like has anyone tried Converse?

Some ugg boots would work, i reckon...

Kenneth Hertzog
05-06-2008, 9:01 AM
How about those wooden dutch boy/girl shoes:D

Sandra Force
05-06-2008, 12:48 PM
Almost any mid to light colored leather shoe works well. Color dyed shoes are touchy due to the varying depth of the dye coat. Be a little careful if you do oil tanned boots or moccs, I haven't tried them due to the oil content retained in the leather.

Doug Bergstrom
05-07-2008, 10:13 AM
You can laser any material with success. We have done Jeans and they look great. WE have also lasered Fleece, colored cottons, canvas...

Zac Altman
05-07-2008, 10:26 AM
So im guessing, the best thing to do would just be to try everything :D

Will the laser ever burn the fabrics, as in can it catch on fire when engraving? Let me know your experiences, especially with stuff burning.

I had a scary experience when engraving my Zune at the Epilog place. We put my green Zune 8 in, pressed start. All was good, it was engraving well. Happy Happy Happy...until boom! Flames popped out from the right side of the Zune, well they were like coming from underneath. The paper towel cloth like thingo that we had put underneath caught on fire.

So what to do? luckily i was with the epilog pro, so he pushed the stop button and blew the flames out. We put a piece of metal on top of the paper towel cloth thingo and went on with the engraving.

All turned out well, Zune isnt damaged at all, the black marks rubbed off with a wet cloth.

The funny thing is, i didnt even panic when the Zune "went up in flames". I dont know why. I was just like, "that isnt supposed to happen..."

Frank Corker
05-07-2008, 10:51 AM
Zac it sounds like he was doing a vector run and not a raster. Raster is the etching, vector is the cutting.

Zac Altman
05-07-2008, 10:56 AM
It wasnt a vector because the zune is fine and the etching is perfect. Its just the fact that the paper cloth stuff caught on fire, but it did look like it was coming from underneath the Zune.

Doug Bergstrom
05-07-2008, 4:21 PM
when lasering fabrics you have to do some testing but low power high speed works best.

John Barton
05-09-2008, 1:07 AM
Test and record. I keep a book with the right settings for different materials. I also save the laser settings in descriptive file names. Very hand for when you need to recall the right settings for a particular material.

Once I lasered a guys leather cue case. I had the focus wrong and it wasn't coming out right. So I kept upping the power and he asked me if it was supposed to flame like that. I said sure it's just going deep.

When we got it out of the machine it looked good for about three seconds and then the whole image crumbled leaving a charcoal hole in the leather.

Cost me $250 to replace the case and the embarrassment to boot. I quickly learned to test, test, test, measure measure, measure, pray and then pull the trigger.

Fabric is easy to laser once you have the right settings. I think on shoes the hard part would be getting a flat surface to focus on. I would guess that would be the tricky part.