Engraving carbon fiber

[David James]

The link below is of a carbon fiber belt buck a customer would like engraved. Dos anybody have any experience engraving carbon fiber. I would think this is pretty thin, I wonder how it will react and what setting I should use? Thank you!


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carbonfibergear.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/silver-carbon-fiber-belt-buckle.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.carbonfibergear.com/rob-diamond-carbon-fiber-belt-buckle/&usg=__FYotsR0dOkPcYNg43HcU8vkxk2U=&h=345&w=400&sz=34&hl=en&start=71&tbnid=NrF_fGF6GPoxTM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbelt%2Bbuckle%26start%3D54%26gbv%3D2% 26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

[Dave Johnson29]

The link below is of a carbon fiber belt buck a customer


Hi David,

That may not be carbon fiber as I am not aware of a silver colored version. As far as I know carbon fiber is black from the, er Carbon. :)

Probably a Formica-like stuff. Not sure what to suggest for settings though. Start light and repeat the burn a few times.

[Brian Robison]

David, it would engrave a "Ghost" effect. I've engraved some. I can't remember the settings. I think I have some images on my website.

[Dan Hintz]

Dave, CF comes in all colors of the rainbow :)

[john welsh]

i always throw it in the laser and see what happens ?
as settings vary from machine to machine so best way i know is fast speed and low power and just keep increasing the power in stages of 5% .
ounce you find the result to be good enough note the settings and then next time you try a similar piece of material start on those settings and if it isnt a good enough finish on one pass , it would suggest that your earlier attempt worked because you gave it several passes. so now start to drop the speed in 5% phases to get the best result.
then im fairly confident that on your 3rd attempt the saved settings should be spot on perfect first time .:) but then again some one may know different. it sounds complicated but trust me its not

[curtis rosche]

thats not engraved. that is the texture of the carbon fabric that is used. just buy that and say you made it.

[Dan Hintz]

Curtis,

I believe the OP has a customer who wishes the face of the buckle be engraved, not the CF pattern itself.

[Rob Bosworth]

David, any time I have tried working with laid up carbon fiber with a laser we get pretty poor results. the problem is the carbon fiber has a very high vaporization temp and the epoxy/ binder is fairly low. We either get a black gooey mess in the bottom or stray fibers sticking out. At least that has been our experience.