Can you laser engrave Quartz?

[Keith Outten]

A customer just sent me a picture of a logo that needs to be engraved in white quartz that has several shades of gray. I can't say that I have ever seen anyone post here that they laser engraved quartz.

[Mike Null]

Keith

I doubt that this will be much help but here is some onyx that I sandblasted and color filled. I don't know how you're going to reproduce the shades of gray.



onyx.jpg

[Kev Williams]

I tried to laser a black onyx stone in the 25w ULS many years ago, the surface of the stone literally exploded as the beam moved across the surface, showering the lens with hot pieces of fractured rock-
ulslens.jpg
--it's the reason this lens looks like this!

Not sure if it was a freak thing or what, but I'll never forget it! So I'm a bit leery of test-engraving stones these days!

[Keith Outten]

Thanks,

Engraving quartz doesn't look very promising, I haven't found much positive information on the Internet either. If the stone is large enough maybe it can be CNC Routed and painted.