30W Fibermark range of operation?

[Josh Jackson]

Hello Sawmill friends,

As usual I mention to clients I am experimenting with a new tool or material and they begin ordering. The saga of love hate relationships. Here is my issue. About a month and a half ago I was able to set up my Fibermark 30W. Thankfully some friends in the local tech school are providing scrap sheets of aluminum and steel for me to run tests on. However, I am getting a bit tired of trying to go through every single setting adjustment to see what happens.

Now before I get harped on let me explain what I am doing and why I am working through the whole gamut. I discovered while studying up that you can achieve discoloring of metals based on certain settings. When I pressured the manufacturer's fab shop they sent me a picture of a sample sheet they did. The sample only had a few colors and really skewed settings. When I asked for them to help me narrow the window on applicable settings the response was "you'll just have to try as many settings as you can to see what you get." yay....FYI...with a fibermark and skipping power in 10s, speed in 5s, frequency in 5s and every focus range that comes out to roughly 100k possible settings to test. Trust me I even have excel sheets to support this math.

To further complicate the issue I have been getting urgent requests for doing these Yeti, or Yeti-like, mugs. Which requires a 1.5" focus lens when I add the rotary attachment. So my testing has to be done on an elevated jig with flat metal sheets so it gets within the focus range because the table does not reach all the way up for a 1.5" lens dead 0 focus. Another yay.

All this being said to give proper supporting information. I have scanned the forum but only find pre-2011 posts vaguely alluding to fibermarks and settings. So I am asking the following questions.

1. Has anyone gone through this whole testing phase with a fibermark that would be willing to share their knowledge?
2. Has anyone found the focus/power/speed ranges to get all the adequate marks?
- Caveat, I know some will tell me only within certain focuses but when I did 5 S/ 5 P/ 1 Fr/ -500 to -410 I got marking. Bumped up the power to 10 and got nothing. This made my brain hurt for a bit.
3. Are there better jigs anyone has for a similar problem? All of mine so far have proven either unstable or incapable of keeping the metal flat.
-And I've tried a few things, but the hard part is precision and stability. The material has to be completely flat since the focus goes in small measurements (.001 and .003 / .2 to .8 mm)

Fun times. And as always, thank you.

Respectfully,
JJ 'The Gent'

[Gary Hair]

I have done quite a bit of color testing with my fiber, it's not a fibermark so my settings won't mean a thing to you. I can tell you, however, that it is even more daunting a task than you have even imagined so far. Why? Because when you throw in "the rest" of the variables it exponentially increases the possible settings. The other variables are: focus - above and below seem to have different results, material thickness - the color is created by heating the material so thickness makes a big difference, and finally, size of the image - because the heat affects the color, a 1/4" square will be a very different color than a 1/2" or 1" square using the same settings and on the same material, and you also have to add in hatch angle, hatch type, spacing and number of hatches. I have been able to produce 47 shades of black and a few each of red, green, yellow, and blue colors on 1/8" stainless using 1/4" squares. I spent many hours tinkering and gave up but I do use the black settings quite often. I am usually very giving with what I have learned over the years, but I spent so much time with color experimenting that I won't give up my secrets to anyone. Redo your spreadsheet to include my variables and hopefully you'll see why.

[Josh Jackson]

Haha. I kind of figured it was one of those that most of us who purchased it have come across. Thank you for the two additional insights. Those didn't really even cross my mind. The main thing I'm tuning at the moment is the frequency and focus. May even pick up Astrology to know when the stars align right.

And I don't think any less of you for safeguarding your settings set up. Fully understand after just two weekends with red bull, coffee, and naps during the runs. I've been successful with gold, brown, and at least five awesome blacks. Some really good polish effects as well. What's more fun is when the machine decides to do the previous run again instead of the new one.

Based on what you've said I can see how most are choosing to stick with the 'trinity' of polish, anneal, and etch. Taking the simple route. But...you don't get success by following the crowd.

[Gary Hair]

But...you don't get success by following the crowd.

Exactly!

I believe there are two secrets for success:
1. Never tell everything you know
2.

[Josh Jackson]

Hahaha....ow...my side is hurting from laughing....