engraving ceramic blanks

[Craig Hogarth]

anyone ever engrave ceramic blanks? I'm looking to do small 4 inch tiles yet to be painted and fired.

I'm guessing they're going to break during firing, but maybe someone has an idea on how to prevent it.

[Craig Hogarth]

I ended up doing some lines, text and a couple small graphics. When rastered, it gives it a mirrored look.

I also tried to vector cut it. The tiles are 1/4 inch thick and I did 10 passes at 100 power, 0.3 speed. I got about half way through. What I didn't expect was for the ceramic to melt. By the time the laser got an inch into the cut, it would solidify and the piece sticks back again.

This is for a local business that let's people paint ceramics in their studio. If it fires sucessfully, they'll be having us put pictures on them for the customers to paint.

[Steve McKee]

Sounds interesting Craig, any chance you could post a pic? Maybe even one after the firing.

[Craig Hogarth]

I'll post some once I get home later this evening and definately after it gets cooked.

[Ray Mighells]

Are you engraving the greenware or bisque? I've been doing some white glazed 6 X 6" ceramic tile. Once you've blasted through the glaze (high power - low speed), they color fill nicely. Many ceramics go through multiple firings.

[Craig Hogarth]

Not sure what greenware or bisque is.

But these are ones that haven't been fired yet, so no glaze. The intention is to engrave, paint then fire.

[Craig Hogarth]

I got two more that are too big.

Limit is 107.8 KB. One is 109.2, the other 108

[Craig Hogarth]

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1.../100_2095w.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1.../100_2096w.jpg

[Craig Hogarth]

It turned out fairly well. We at least got the result he was looking for.

When lasered, the ceramic gets a mirror like surface which the paint cannot adhere to. However, if deep enough, the paint will fill and he was able to glaze and fire nicely.

Next step is to engrave text and/or graphics with a mask. He'll be able to paint/fire just the lasered areas. Wehn customers paint over these, the paint will just wipe off.

I can't get these pictures small enough.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1...d/100_2109.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1...d/100_2110.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1...d/100_2111.jpg

[Tim Shoemaker]

What do you use for the color fill process on these white ceramic tiles? How do you apply the color fill? Is it suitable for outdoors?

[Craig Hogarth]

As far as I know, he it was just regular ceramic paint. After masking, he was able to paint, then bake then paint the tile then bake again.

This project didn't go much further than what was posted. Our original plan was to have me do some line art and/or text on the tiles allowing him to resell as partial blanks to customers. However with the cost of engraving and him having to do two firing raised the price higher than what his customers were willing to pay and I haven't done any since the initial tests.