Laser Engraving Wooden Knobs

[Frank Corker]

On that subject, I would be grateful to anyone who can recommend the program that makes this type of greyscale image, also how hard are they to create from a flat image?

[Shari Loveless]

Mike,
I would like to see a pic of the engraved piece. When I get time, I'll give it a try with those settings. Maybe this weekend. Right now I'm working on some pinecones. Not the easiest thing to learn on, but it's a good project for testing all the tools and settings.

Frank,
I'm using several programs at present. Corel and ArtCam Pro are two of those. How hard is it to create dimension from flat? Well........I may learn to like flat! Just kidding.

I actually invested in these programs to be able to do designs for my own customers as well as other carvers and laser users.

Shari

[Mike Mackenzie]

Shari,

Here is the picture, by the way I used popular to engrave this on.

[Shari Loveless]

Mike,
Did you put a finish on it. It looks kind of shiny. And about how deep is it? Did you refocus at any point. I am definitely going to give this a try. I wonder if very lite sandblasting would remove the burn? I don't have that capability yet, so just curious.

Thanks for running the test for me. I'm sure I would have "toastied" the board. Have a great weekend.

Shari

[Mike Mackenzie]

No finish this is a raw piece of wood the depth is a little less than 1/8 inch. The burn is the reason to do multiple light passes rather than one or two heavy power passes.

[Frank Corker]

Shari,

I have just been looking at the ArtCAM site. That is amazing. Tell me, when you have finished creating your 3d image, are you able to save it to a .tif format?

[Shari Loveless]

Frank,
Yes you can save as a tif. I just save as a bmp usually.
Shari

[Frank Corker]

I went to the Gantry site and requested they send me a 'test' picture and the one was very similar to the acorn that you posted. I told them it was for my Epilog 45w Helix, they said it was a bit 'lean' for a good result. I think they would probably have to eat their words this is the result using 2 passes at 45%speed 100% power on black acrylic.