I am working on a pen for a customer who wanted an engraving. This particular pen is using an acrylic blank with pebble shapes and mica powder pigments. So its slightly translucent, not a lot but a little. I've engraved resins before, although mostly solid color, and then mostly black. This particular resin scatters a lot of the laser light, and I am having some trouble getting all the details into the engraving. Thus far, I've only turned it just to round, and have been doing test engravings, as I was not 100% certain how it would take. Good thing...
I am wondering if anyone has engraved blanks like this before? If so, any tips or recommendations for how to engrave this kind of blank well? I originally tried with a thin masking tape. Tape I've used before, but for some reason the engraving did not actually fully penetrate the tape even after 25 passes at 100% power. I then took the tape off, and started test engraving, and while it is engraving the surface, its not going very deep (50 passes now so far), and I'm not sure its really a great quality engraving. I knew there would be some differences engraving this material, vs. the black or solid resins I've engraved in the past...however, it seems its a fair bit different than I originally expected.
Thanks!
I am wondering if anyone has engraved blanks like this before? If so, any tips or recommendations for how to engrave this kind of blank well? I originally tried with a thin masking tape. Tape I've used before, but for some reason the engraving did not actually fully penetrate the tape even after 25 passes at 100% power. I then took the tape off, and started test engraving, and while it is engraving the surface, its not going very deep (50 passes now so far), and I'm not sure its really a great quality engraving. I knew there would be some differences engraving this material, vs. the black or solid resins I've engraved in the past...however, it seems its a fair bit different than I originally expected.
Thanks!