Hello Asmbly Community!
I was wondering if anyone had experience with using the lasers or a hand engraver on glass? I have a paperweight for a family member I want to engrave as a graduation gift. Happy to pay someone for their skills and time in assisting me with this project:)
@Jordanva2 Teaches the class on Laser Engraving Round Materials. She may be able to point you in the right direction.
If is flat glass, is just a normal fill or raster setting.
@JOSEGAYTAN do you think you could help me do the engraving?
No ma’am, my plate is full for the next two weeks or so. Sorry!
Is it flat? If so, I could probably help next time im in the shop if you need it. Never engraved glass but it seems pretty simple, with some test pieces. If its round then I can’t help, not sure how to do that
all good!
Do you want to do a basic vector engraving, block raster fill, or an actual graphic with grayscale shades?
Round or uneven shapes you use the center out origin. In other words you find the center of the object, set the red dot/origin on the object center, select the center circle with the user origin option on the light burn setting, run the frame to make sure and it should be good. Flat glass you have two options: raster/fill the front/top of the glass, no changes to the graphic, or raster/fill the back/bottom which in turn you would have to mirror the image.
By round I meant more like bulbous or spherical. Is there a way to get Lightburn to engrave on a spherical surface without some sort of rotary?
If you keep the graphic smalll enough. For example a normal wine glass if you keep the graphic around 1 1/2" may come out looking right with the edges a little fuzzy. Basically it applies to any cylindrical or spherical object, the size of the graphic can be as big as the semiflat surface. Such as a Yety 20 oz cylinder tumbler you probably can put a 2" square graphic with little problem.
The laser will go pretty far out of focus if the surface drops down by 3mm or so. There’s no workaround for that. The machine does have a powered z but it can’t be used to adjust focus on a spherical surface on the fly.
The rotary works because a cylinder can be turned and the laser will stay at the same focal distance
For a conical shape like a martini glass, the rotary axis can be tilted to keep the edge of the glass parallel to the gantry all along its rotation again so focus can be maintained precisely there.
There’s not a good answer for things other than a cylinder or cone. Many glasses have other complex curvatures where there’s no perfect setup but you can often just work within a smaller part of the glass where the focus is still good enough.
Agree but what i said does not make sense but it does work. I have done thousands of glass engraving and again i agree that some kind of rotary or grip chuck works best. But if you can get a cylindrical object to stay parallel and immobile (biggest hurdle) and keep the image to a certain size, it can be done without a rotary. But you dont have to believe me. Here is a template used on Polar Camel tumblers (you have some samples by pearl and up front)
Tell me where you see a rotary. You can get this template to cover the whole bed of the laser and do over 20 tumblers at a time depending on the size of the table. There are other templates used by custom shops for other objects like the above. It’s in a way a trade secret. Time is money, you keep an image to be lasered to 3 minutes or less, charge over $10, and spend less time switching, youll make very good money on multiples.