I have been wanting to give our church a copy of the Ten Commandments to post inside the church. I have had these written up on MS Word for a few years and was going to have my friend Ken burn them for me. Now that I have a laser, I pulled them into the XCS software and burned my own copy. Actually I had to retype them all over because I could not adjust the wording of the WORD program in the XCS software and the items did not line up vertically. I burned them into some pieces of poplar core mahogany faced pieces of a table insert that I got from my buddy, Doug, at the last guild meeting. Thanks, Doug!! I mounted them on a piece of 1/4" walnut but they can be taken off and hung on a wall just the same!
Each tablet is 3/4" x 7" wide x 7 1/2" high and finished with a satin top coat.
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Moses would think twice before smashing those up Jim, well done!
You should experiment with stone and your laser. Fine-grain rocks can be etched and if you paint them first with grade school tempura paints, you can etch in colors. White paint contains titanium dioxide which melts into a deep black and fuses to the surface. If you play with adding mica powder you can skew the tint.
Slate is a common material people etch for coasters, etc.
Hi Larry, I'm using it every day now. I do experimenting with patterns and parameter settings . I try to learn a little bit each time.
Hi Alex, at 85% power and 150 mm speed, it engraves about .025" deep..so it is a depth engraving to a degree!!
Hi Bruce. Thanks for the tip on the rock engraving and painting. I've not gotten into that yet but these commandments would be nice on two white rock/ tile/stone tablets,
Question for you: I have an order for a logo with 3B's tied together in the corners. If I get it built with each of the B's about 4" long, is there a way to treat them as a group so I can take that whole thing and shrink and grow it so they stay in the same relation to each other ?
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Jim. Standard design software allows you to create objects (a "B") and then manipulate them. You could then triplicate your "B" and then rearrange each one in any way that works for the logo (rotate, flip, scale, etc.). Last operation is to join them all together as one, usually by just dragging a box around the group with the mouse and finding the "group" menu item. Alternatively. a menu item "select all" then "group" should do the same. Once grouped, they should behave as a single object and you can resize at will.
Splint, that’s easily done in Lightburn by grouping. 👍🏼 In fact, you can go the other way and un-group images/logos that you import as well…splitting them into separate pieces (assuming correct file type to begin with).
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Oh yeah! I wanted to just tell Jim the LB commands, but he has the X-tool software. There may be similar ability, but I just assume he'll use a drawing program to create a pdf or svg.
Hi Guys. I was clicking through the tabs on XCS software on another project and I though I saw grouping but I forgot where. This software does not come with any manual explaining the commands so I'm learning from others who have gone there before me. If you hear about it. please let me know. In the meantime, I'll keep in contact with the X Tool forum.
Cheers, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Jim Jakosh ..... Hi Alex, at 85% power and 150 mm speed, it engraves about .025" deep..so it is a depth engraving to a degree!! .....
Just asking JJ as I'm a great fan of Timbermate infills on laser engraving. I strive for about 1mm deep so I can sand away without concern of bottoming out.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Hi Alex. Do the infills get set with CA glue? I have lot of different color inlays that I use with CA glue. In my experimenting, I found that if I burn at 100% and 150 mm speed, it burns .033" deep..just about 1 mm.
Cheers, my friend, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
I just use food colouring (from local supermarket) with naturalTimbermate... not white, as that "pastels" the colours. The Timbermate sands beautifully... the only catch is to pat it down and not pull it across, as if your engraving has little "pilons" sticking up through the surrounding engrave (engraved away), pulling the filler across may break those pilons.
Still the red comes out more pinkish, so I use Chinese red food colouring (powder)...
I know I gave the specs somewhere but it's 1:30am 1:45am and I'm gonna go to bed.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Barb, I wouldn’t say a laser is now an essential part of a shop, but it’s certainly becoming a more commonly used tool in a lot of shops. It open up a whole other world for your work. 👍🏼
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Hi Alex. I have a few different powdered wood fillers. I never thought of coloring them. No CA glue and the mess with it needed!! Do you have to seal the wood first so it doe not seep in the grain around the burned project? Thanks, Mate!!
Hi Ryan, to me the laser is more essential to my shop than a SawStop. I used to have bug my friend to run even a little project for me. Now I'm independent.
Thanks. Barbara, I'll be giving it to Fr John this Sunday. I bought my laser from X Tool through E bay and it is reconditioned. I saved about $500 and it is guaranteed like a new one.. I did not get a rotating tool with it, but I don't plan to do that sort of thing with it. I did have to buy an air pump - a Geekbee- found it on Ebay as an "open box" item for less than half price of a new. Money goes further if you shop around. Space is a problem for me because my shop gets dusty so I did not want it in there or in the barn. I have it set up on my table that turns into shelves that I take to craft sales. I don't have exhaust back there in the basement so I manually use a vacuum next to the head when burning to capture the smoke- it gets most of it. The beauty of it is that if I get an idea for a project, I can walk over to the computer , turn on the laser and have it done in 10 minutes...and I thought I'd have a hard time learning to run it !!! I joined a few of the XTool forums on Facebook and I'm blown away by what some people can create with them. If you get one, you'll not regret it!!!
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
I probably should seal, but I don't. I sand to 320G and because I engrave 2-3 times, I get enough depth to keep it relatively clean. I try to keep away from grainy wood, though at times the affect can be quite pleasant. Probably a coat of sanding sealer (shellac diluted 1:10 with metho wouldn't hurt).
Sometimes I use tape (special laser tape... not cheap, but in bulk it's much, much cheaper than masking tape. The problem is that you need to sand quite a bit to remove the tape after it's been backfilled. Couple of videos I made,
I only use Timbermate (with colour) for engrave infills or leave void... never paint... Splinter is the "ejncyclopidi" with 'poxies and other media.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
I think if you over fill a bit and then block sand with a flat sanding block will avoid the concavity! My favorite way to fill like that is to finish sand first, burn the pattern and the coat the wood with sealer so nothing wicks into the wood around the subject. Then I over-fill it with inlay material and drip on CA glue and acetone to cure. I then sand down to the sealer and take off very little wood.
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
