Glass etching/engraving Loco Nut Bottles

[Chase Mueller]

Sorry for flooding the forum and all, but I was wondering if anybody has etched/engraved an image or anything really on an empty bottle of Captain Morgan Loco Nut? My fiance is doing a little art thing at home and is gonna make what she called potion (i guess its just a filling with different colors and glitter?) and wanted me to mark it for her. I just have a few concerns here:
1: Will the marking even show up on it without needing cermark or something to fill in the engraving?
2: Can my machine even do it since I don't have a rotary or anything since the bottle is shaped like a cannonball?

[Jeff Watkins]

Hi Chase, I've never done one of those type of bottles but there are a few things you can try to make sure it will do what you want. For engraving on a round surface without a rotary you can take few strips of blue painters tape wider that your graphic and run a high speed/low power pass to see how far out you can mark. You could also make something like a bullseye with ranging rings every .0625 or .125 inches to see where the beam becomes too weak. If the outermost edge of your graphic drops by say .25 inch from the top of the bottle then lower you focus by .125 inch so you're half way into the range it would be engraving. I almost always use a few drops of dish soap rubbed over the entire area that's being engraved, just make sure it's thin and evenly distributed. A bowl of rice also works well to hold odd shaped bottles in place. If you need to color fill it make sure you get the etching deep enough so you could use something like Rub N Buff. Most of the craft stores carry it and have a 40 or 50% off coupon on their websites.

Good luck, post a picture of you finished bottle if you can.

[Chase Mueller]

Hi Chase, I've never done one of those type of bottles but there are a few things you can try to make sure it will do what you want. For engraving on a round surface without a rotary you can take few strips of blue painters tape wider that your graphic and run a high speed/low power pass to see how far out you can mark. You could also make something like a bullseye with ranging rings every .0625 or .125 inches to see where the beam becomes too weak. If the outermost edge of your graphic drops by say .25 inch from the top of the bottle then lower you focus by .125 inch so you're half way into the range it would be engraving. I almost always use a few drops of dish soap rubbed over the entire area that's being engraved, just make sure it's thin and evenly distributed. A bowl of rice also works well to hold odd shaped bottles in place. If you need to color fill it make sure you get the etching deep enough so you could use something like Rub N Buff. Most of the craft stores carry it and have a 40 or 50% off coupon on their websites.

Good luck, post a picture of you finished bottle if you can.

Thanks for the tip! I've never done glass before, so I was unsure how it would look without some sort of filling. Luckily we have two empty bottles so I'll have one to practice on! When doing the actual job, would you recommend a higher or lower power?

[Adam Herman]

No laser here, but this could be a job to cut a stencil with the laser and then use glass etching paste, available at Michael or similar. we did a few items with the past and they turned out great. just make a stencel out of some kind of adhesive backed vinyl to conform to the curved surface.

[Chase Mueller]

No laser here, but this could be a job to cut a stencil with the laser and then use glass etching paste, available at Michael or similar. we did a few items with the past and they turned out great. just make a stencel out of some kind of adhesive backed vinyl to conform to the curved surface.

Good idea. I'll check with the Warden first, but I THINK she wants to be able to see the image, whatever it even is since I still don't know, with the potion visible through it if that makes sense.

[Bill George]

Good idea. I'll check with the Warden first, but I THINK she wants to be able to see the image, whatever it even is since I still don't know, with the potion visible through it if that makes sense.

Glass is glass, try on a catsup bottle, drinking glass or what have you until you get it right.

[Chase Mueller]

Glass is glass, try on a catsup bottle, drinking glass or what have you until you get it right.

Fair enough, was unsure if the thick glass of liquor bottles had the same engraving properties of common drinking glasses. Luckily there are two bottles, one to practice on and surely mess up.

[Bill George]

Been looking at the stencil material they are selling. Its recommended to cut with a vinyl cutter, wonder if it could be cut with a laser? Seems like it would be the easy way to go, but would the fumes and perhaps melting the edges would be an issue?

[Bill George]

Fair enough, was unsure if the thick glass of liquor bottles had the same engraving properties of common drinking glasses. Luckily there are two bottles, one to practice on and surely mess up.

Your just etching the surface, try some thinner drinking glasses.... she won't even notice if you mis-spelled her name!

[Chase Mueller]

.... she won't even notice if you mis-spelled her name!

That was a nice chuckle!
Thanks for the tips, gonna start as soon as she tells me what she wants, so like next two years give or take. LOL

[John Lifer]

I've been engraving liquor bottles fairly regularly. The epilog folks recommend high power and high speed and changing your graphics to 80percent black or dithering. My cheep Chinese can't change percent black, so I've been successful at using a paper mask (used for vinyl wrap mainly). Without a mask, it fractures and chips badly.

[Kev Williams]

My cheep Chinese can't change percent black, so I've been successful at using a paper mask ...

Give this a try for kicks: take your black whatever, change it to 80% black, have Corel convert it to a bitmap, try 200 dpi first (but 300 may work better), and select black & white\\dithered\\apply ICC profile\\anti-aliasing ... Save it as a windows .bmp, then import it into your cheep Chinese and see what happens on glass --I've found this works wonders on certain leather, been going to try it on glass but haven't gotten a round tuit yet

[Jeff Watkins]

Thanks for the tip! I've never done glass before, so I was unsure how it would look without some sort of filling. Luckily we have two empty bottles so I'll have one to practice on! When doing the actual job, would you recommend a higher or lower power?

I didn't realize you hadn't done any glass before. Glass is glass is true to a point but not all glass is created equal. I've had some glass that engraved beautifully with nice tight lines while others had a lot more jagged edges. The higher quality glass typically does engrave better. I save pickle jars, beer bottles and all sorts of kitchen glass to test on. A neighbor asked me to engrave a bunch of glasses this past December. Two of the glasses came with a $75 Whiskey gift set. I was nervous as heck engraving them but when it was all said and done they looked almost like they'd been sandblasted with very smooth matte finish.

You can also get some decent glass at dollar type stores. They make for inexpensive gifts that have a high perceived value. I engraved a dozen 10 inch plates from a dollar store for Christmas. My wife put fudge on them and gave them out at work. A couple people asked if she wanted the plate back till they looked at the backside and realized that was the true gift. I even cut a two piece wood display stand that snapped together for each one of them.

On my 45 watt CO2, I either run 95 power and 45 speed for a deeper engraving or 40 power and 60 speed for a light frosted look. You'll have to play with you laser to find the sweet spot and what it will do for you. There's a point where you get through the glass and it leaves almost like glass skin on the surface. It looks good at first but then starts to flake off. Unless you get it all off it doesn't look too good. I saw a post from someone here, I don't remember who or I'd give them credit, but they suggested using 0000 steel wool after engraving to remove the left over skin and grit. This has really changed doing glass for me. I tear off a quarter size piece of 0000 steel wool and rub the engraving under running water. It get washes off the dish soap I put on before and removes any remaining glass fragments.

I also do most of my artwork for glass at 80% gray. Then apply a dithering in the laser software. This seems to cause a smoother surface with less or no banding. The Epilog site says to use Stuci dithering so you might try that along with other setting to see what looks the best. I start my test glass by making a .5x.5 inch square and just move a half inch at time trying different settings. Take a sharpie and write your settings on the glass and you'll have it for next time.

I don't have an Epilog but they have a lot of good information on their site. If you go to Epilog's site under the Resources tab they have Sample Club, where you'll find quite a few projects they show with settings. There's a number of glass projects in there. Some go along with what we're all telling you, some not so much. It's just trial and error but you're figure it out.

For cutting stencils, I'd stay away from Vinyl, it's hazardous to you, the laser, and pretty much everything when it burns. I use Heat Transfer Vinyl that's not actually vinyl but a PolyUrethane (PU) composite in the laser and it cuts fine but too expensive for a mask. Blue painters tape work good for laser cut mask. The other thing is that etching cream is also very toxic, more than people realize. If you choose to use it I'd recommend doing it outside. It has cumulative effects on your nervous system. The MSDS info is available online.

[Bert Kemp]

a longer lens might help also on rounded glass and no rotary.

[Kev Williams]

Glass is glass is true to a point but not all glass is created equal.

True-- these glass jars were going to be an ongoing project, and piece o' cake to etch because that part of the jar was flat!
glass2.jpgglass1.jpg
-- Sadly, it turns out this glass is loaded with borosilicate, to the point it simply won't micro-fracture like 'normal' glass, the laser barely affected it..
-- But oh man, after it cooled down, did it ever macro-fracture!

Cheap booze bottles, probably not going to have this problem