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Thread: Engraving wood using fiber laser

  1. #1

    Engraving wood using fiber laser

    Hello,

    Initial data: Raycus 50wt, 200 * 200
    Material: Plywood, oak.
    Task: Get an engraving.

    After reading the manuals, it became clear that a fiber engraver can not engrave on wood, however, some of my colleagues in the workshop do this engraving, claiming that they have fiber engravers.
    As far as I know, wood engraving can only be obtained on CO2 or galvanic CO2 machines.
    If nevertheless I am not right, please tell me the approximate parameters for such an engraving for testing.
    Thanks in advance for your reply.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Iowa USA
    Posts
    4,441
    Some wood can be engraved with a fiber, you will need to experiment to find out.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Hayes, Virginia
    Posts
    14,760
    Bill's comment is also true when using a standard CO2 laser. Some wood species just don't engrave well and oak is one of them. Pine is also a poor choice. Try cherry, alder, maple, mahogany, walnut or hickory. Maple being one of the best because it does not darken over time so you don't lose contrast. Cherry and alder are excellent initially but the contrast degrades over time. I don't have any experience with a fiber laser but I assume that some of the rules of CO2 laser engraving wood still applies based on the chemical makeup of each species.

    Lots of threads here about engraving a variety of wood species.
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 01-18-2020 at 11:19 AM.

  4. #4
    The little bit of wood I've tried on my fibers, just smokes. But I haven't had much practice time to see what parameter changes may or may not work--
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Kev Williams View Post
    The little bit of wood I've tried on my fibers, just smokes. But I haven't had much practice time to see what parameter changes may or may not work--
    https://www.mecco.com/blog-can-a-fib...r-engrave-wood

  6. #6
    Dark woods, mahogany, teak etc will engrave well, light & open grain like oak won’t or will just burn irregularly.
    355 - 10400 : )

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Westminster, MD
    Posts
    64
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith Outten View Post
    Bill's comment is also true when using a standard CO2 laser. Some wood species just don't engrave well and oak is one of them. Pine is also a poor choice. Try cherry, alder, maple, mahogany, walnut or hickory. Maple being one of the best because it does not darken over time so you don't lose contrast. Cherry and alder are excellent initially but the contrast degrades over time. I don't have any experience with a fiber laser but I assume that some of the rules of CO2 laser engraving wood still applies based on the chemical makeup of each species.

    Lots of threads here about engraving a variety of wood species.
    Like Ken I can't speak to a fiber laser-- wish I could-- but there's one 'unexpected' material that might work for logos or line drawings. I've had some luck with Home Depot white 'handi-panel', using a 40 watt CO2 Mini-18. That's just gloss white paint, nice and smooth, on 1/8 inch masonite. Also works well as a cheap dry erase white board :-) I've done line drawings, logos, and some grayscale photos, and at about $11 per 4x8 sheet it's good for practice. For a grayscale photo the settings were 75 speed, 100 power at 400 dpi and a Stucki dither. Tried 1-Touch, Gold method in Photoshop and processing in CorelDraw but those didn't do as well as a simple grayscale. I'd speculate the hard gloss paint layer might give you a chance with the fiber laser. Some sample pictures in a zip archive are in my Dropbox account here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g1fy4oqizq...mples.zip?dl=0

    One of the items is a desk name plate, with two inlays in a piece of old wormy American chestnut. As an aside, the chestnut did not darken all that well, so the lettering is paint filled.

    Duncan
    Old gray geezer/woodworker/hiker/canoeist...
    40 watt Epilog Mini-18 in a solar-powered shop...
    Corel X5, X6, GS 2017, GS 2019; BoxIt, FlexIt; Photoshop CS6, 1-Touch Photolaser
    Stinger I CNC, VCarve Pro

  8. #8
    The sample pictures look great!

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