Denim settings

[Bill Morrison]

What were those settings again? Just kidding, I reversed the power and speed settings as you can tell on the left. Is the name on the right supposed to be white instead of brown? I searched the threads (no pun intended) and used the settings Joe mentioned and the name came out good but it dawned on me that I didn't know what the finished product is supposed to look like.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that's reversed their settings.

Bill

[Darren Null]

It should come out white. I think you're burning a smidgeon too hard.
Here's one I did:
http://laser-etching.com/denim--bird.jpg

[Bill Morrison]

THanks, I appreciate you sending the photo. Now I know what to look for. My wife saw the hole in the denim and said I have lasered enough for the day.

Bill

[Curt Stallings]

I have a Epilog 45 watt and run denim at 300 dpi, 100 speed, & 30 power. I have done a lot of denim purses & bags and they turn out great.

Curt

[Darren Null]

The idea in general is to just plink your beam a little way into the surface of the thread so you get the white colour, but without seriously affecting the strength of the material. If you don't do it hard enough, there'll be a blue tint. Then it goes quite a nice white. After that, it goes yellowish, then brown as you step the power up.

Apart from that one piece, I've never had a piece to test on...it's all been for my wife, kids, or their friends, so I err on the side of caution and burn lightly. You can always go over it again lightly if you undercook it, but you can't correct if you bake it too hard. The fact that the clothes are normally accompanied with instructions like "My friend just paid 80 euros for these jeans; get it wrong and you're a dead man" tend to reinforce that way of working.

The really important thing, of course, is to get the material dead flat.

I've found that different denims need differing amounts of power- you have fluffy denim, stretch, stone-washed (have to be careful with that) and allsorts. So I start at 100%S 50%P on my 10W (less for stonewashed), then correct from there.

[Jack Harper]

Someone here mentioned wetting the denim first and that is what I have always done with no problems. I also use a 4.0 lens to remove any slight flatness issues.