For wood, I have found that finishing the piece before lasering (I usually sand, use danish oil with a top coat of shellac, then wax) then engraving, then going over with gel stain gives very good results. The dark gel stain wipes off of the shellacked surace without staining darker. The gel settles into the engraving and gives excellent contrast. If using mask and paint, I would strongly suggest you use shellac prior to applying the paint, as it will help prevent bleed. Again, this is for wood. Never tried it with any other material.
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I've used on any wood that I felt like I didn't get a good enough contrast, although I have never tried it on plywood. You understand correctly in that the gel stain settles into the fresh "grooves" made by the laser. Again, I always finish/shellac my wood prior to engraving. That way, if I apply the gel stain, it wipes off the surface easy without changing the surface color. leaving the darker stain in the engraving.
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It's 4 skateboards side by side by side. The laser stopped right after the point you see there.
Very cool. I'll try and figure this out without gel, but if that's what it takes I'll try. Just got really nice contrast on ply just by doing a 2nd pass, curious how much darker the gel would take it.
Here's another from the same artist, can clearly see it's some sort of effect happening in the plywood. Either naturally or with a gel. There's no painting going on here that I can tell. This is maple ply
smuglabs_1389299587.jpg
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Judging by the darkening on the non-ingraved ares of those two cards, I would guess that is some sort of applied stain.
Brian Lamb
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Not really masked, like what Bill Munroe said, have a finish on the wood, laser it and then wipe stain on the engraving and it will wipe off the top, except where there might be enough surface imperfection to hold any stain. That's what I see in the cards below, like they have linear scratches from sanding in the top surface... you can see a bit of the stain hanging in there and muddying up the top surface. At least that's my guess from the pictures....
Brian Lamb
Lamb Tool Works, Custom tools for woodworkers
Equipment: Felder KF700 and AD741, Milltronics CNC Mill, Universal Laser X-600
Yes, this looks like it was stained after engraving to darken, as you can see the bleeding into the grain. I get that result when I engrave and stain the lasered area. That's a method I use often, but the sanding doesn't always get all of the bleeding out. What I'll often do to minimize the bleed is to engrave, sand, sealcoat, then stain the engraved area. I'll use Restor a finish (dark oak) for the stain. It looks natural, and works pretty well.
This is one I did on baltic birch using that process:
guinn2.jpg
Last edited by Don Corbeil; 04-14-2016 at 6:10 PM.
Don Corbeil
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yes just wipe off the stain the engraved area will hold the stain the finished area will wipe off.
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