Your image should be sized to match your material, DPI set to match what your laser can do (or looks best), and processed so that it’s laser ready.Įven better, processed to match the material. Regardless of what you’re etching on, image preparation is important.
#Laser etch inkscape tutorials how to
How to Prepare Your Photo for Laser Engraving Honestly, I haven’t had great results with this, but it may have been because I was impatient, didn’t dilute properly, or some other issue. Let that sit overnight so it’s fully dry. Take some of the liquid, mix it with a bit of water, and brush/spray on a light coat. The vinegar will have eaten all/most/some of the steel wool (it’s an acid, and that’s what acids do).
Let that sit for a few days, stirring occasionally. Get yourself a glass container with a non-metal lid, throw in a pad of steel wool (non-coated, fine is good), then add vinegar until the pad is covered. Most recently, this has been referred to as the “Kenny Hack” which you can find a video about over on YouTube, but I’ll do a quick and dirty version. This one is based on an old wood working trick for giving wood an aged appearance, and it will change the color of your material depending on the dilution rate. (Cheating at this step yields yucky/uneven results.) And that’s it! Give it a whirl and see how it looks compared to the same burn on untreated wood. Now let the material sit overnight so that it’s completely dry. (Hot water helps dissolve the powder.) When dissolved, brush/spray the material with the solution, giving it a light coat. Mix in 1 part of either of these with 10 parts hot water. These also allow for high speed and lower power burns without loss of detail.
There are a few tricks you can do to get the engraving to be extra black from the get-go instead of the usual brown. This is a really good idea if using wood slices, which have probably not been sanded at all. Some 400-600 grit sandpaper will help smooth out the surface of your material so you can get a more even burn.
Remember that bit above about being flat? This can help. Before getting started on the image work, take some time to consider what you can do to the material itself to make it more compliant to what you want to do.
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