An experiment in Formica.

[Anthony Welch]

Rodney recently posted using "Formica" as an engravable substrate. I happened upon some "matte finished" not the "glossy finished" formica at a bargain $20.00 for 30"x96" sheet.

Engraving the Tile murals as I did, I gave the formica a whirl. Also experimenting with how I did them.

I have always engraved "Laser Tile" straight as a "bmp" and not using "photograv". With the results of the tile I don't beleive photograv will give me any better results on the tile. So I thought I'd try gray scale, save to bmp and engrave as is to the formica.

These are the results of the Matte formica with boot polish finish. To me it appears as if they are a charcoal drawing, as the matte surface keeps some of the polish.

[Anthony Welch]

These are photographs engraved as bmp and not using Photograv, but for the one on the right.

The image on the left was processed using a progam called "Paint.net"(free), using the pencil tool. The one on the right was a photo processed in Photograv (cherry settings). I think I'll get a better image of the One on the right using Paint.net/bmp than what I have on the right. And will post comparison probably Sunday, as I have a Valentines show to do tommorrow.

[John W. Love]

Hey Anthony those look really great. And your right, they do look like they are a charcoal sketch. My dad used to do some charcoal sketches and that is a really good facsimile. Good luck at your show tomorrow.

~John

[Scott Challoner]

Very nice Anthony.

[Dee Gallo]

Anthony, those are very nice! By boot polish finish, do you mean you filled the color or simply covered the whole board with a clear polish?

I guess the question is: does the formica change color when burned?

cheers, dee

[Steve Eide]

Very nice. You've set the bar high! Thank you for posting.

[Anthony Welch]

Anthony, those are very nice! By boot polish finish, do you mean you filled the color or simply covered the whole board with a clear polish?

I guess the question is: does the formica change color when burned?

cheers, dee

Yes Dee, these do change color, but to light yellow. I guess depending on the color formica and how deep you raster.

I take a boot polish brush and black boot polish and cover the whole board. Let dry a couple of minutes. Buff with a dry towel vigorously. Then take same towel or another one with a spray or two of WD-40 and buff again down to how you like. Shy of removing your fill. Which leaves the whole board a shade of gray. Now if this was a gloss/slick formica, then it will, I believe, remove all the polish except for the fill.

Again what I can only get my hands on is this matte finish formica and I'm doing what I can with it. As I stated this is an experiment with formica. If I can afford to order the gloss type finish in the future, I'll post another thread showing a comparison.

As Rodney mentioned before, this is an overlooked substrate and I thought I'd show what I've been able to do with it so far. Your trials may differ.

Anthony

[Bill Cunningham]

Other things you can engrave without photograv are marble (not granite) Romark and most other lamicoids, anodized aluminum, enameled brass and enameled aluminum. and ceramic tile.. Basically anything hard enough to hold a high definition engraving. Granite and glass, unfortunatly are not high definition mediums, and require photograv or similar to pre-process the image..

[Cliff Patrick]

I would like to see how the formica turned out but I can't see any of the pictures that was posted. Care to let me know where they are at so I can take a peek?

[Dave Johnson29]

I would like to see how the formica turned out but I can't see any of the pictures that was posted.

Huh! They were there yesterday but gone today.

That's weird.

[Jerre Griffin]

I'm glad it's not my eyes or a computer glitch. I can't find them either.

Jerre

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

I want to see them as well

[Anthony Welch]

Sorry, a couple of them may be a copyright infringement, so I had them pulled. Here are the photos done as stated above in post #2.

[Cliff Patrick]

That's a great job Anthony. What color was the formica? Was it solid white?

[Anthony Welch]

There is a lumber store in town that happened upon 25+ sheets of "matte" finished formica. I tried acrylic paint fill and it didn't do very well. Then I tried the black boot polish and tried to clean it (WD-40) back to the white matte finish, but it pulled the polish out of the engraving. So I just buff it down w/WD-40 rag until I get a look that I'm pleased with.

If this was a glossy finished formica I think I can get back to the original formica w/o pulling the fill from the engraving.

Anthony