I have a bunch of thin plywood from various sources that I collected. Finally have something to do with them. I am glad I watched this so I didn’t get frustrated and give up.
I'm so glad you said it's not a surface mark. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people suggest using Borax to new users and someone else comes along and says it's just creating more soot! 😞
What a great training video. I've been laser engraving for a while but never had much luck with photos. This video has me excited to try it again. Thank you!
Great video. Im going to try it today! But if i could make a quick suggestion to save you some time. saving it as a jpeg rasterizes the image, So all the work you did in illustrator was just cancelled out. You could have just typed it in photoshop. I did however enjoy the process though so thanks for the tips!
Hi! I’m a newbie and I just lucked up on your channel. Really great content. Can you use this borax treatment on cutting boards. If so, how do you get the borax out of the board so that the cutting board is food safe? Or is that a problem?
I would not use this on food surfaces. Its mainly for decorative use only. If your looking to darken the engraving on cutting boards, you should watch my video on top ten pro tips on wood ruclips.net/video/owQSpQRGPn0/видео.html
WOW! thx so much! Technique test run on 60w Epilog coming shortly. Hope🤞I still have at last a spoonfull of Borax remaining in cleaning supply cabinet😁
First, thank you for a tremendous video. Very helpful. Do you believe borax would hold up for a monogram on a cutting board. Would you consider the end result to be food safe?
From everything I've seen, you do not want to use this method on anything that will be used for consumption. Even sealing the wood first, then engraving it, applying borax, engraving again, then sealing again is still risky.
Hi, Congratulations for the video using borax, have you good formulatrion to engrave glass wine and obtain real white letter or real black letter ? Some guy suggest Cermark product this is high cost and spray is not very useful or easy to use. Regards.
Oh That's a tricky one, Co2 lasers do a pretty good job at getting a white mark on glass all by them selves, now black marks, you could use a laser spray like Brilliance laser inks instead of the expensive Cermark spray brilliancelaserinks.com/?ref=CJRUrI-5EsXfqA much more affordable and it allows you to mark on metals as well as glass as you can see in my other video ruclips.net/video/d1bBxD_Y_nU/видео.html other than those options not sure how you woudl get a black mark on glass with sand etching by hand and filling with enamel paint by hand. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the good work, man. One question pops up here: why did you use Illustrator and not photoshops build in text tool. It has its limitations, but adding some simple text when you finally export as jpg using AI is unnecessary. Was there a reason beside showing some "nice to know" tools?
Good Question! The truth is I like working with font and text in Illustrator and am more proficient in Adobe Illustrator than Photoshop, I have my limitations as well I'm not ashamed to admit,, always learning!
Borax has been challenging to me for some reason so now I'm wondering how to do multicolor paint fill techniques at 50 DPI. Basically get a good 1950s comic book level of quality half tone.
Nice video. Since you use an Epilog (not certain if yours is CO2 or other) do all your videos generally apply equally as well when using a CO2 Laser? I just received a Thunder Laser 130w unit and realize settings will be different between machines but thought I would ask the question. Also, curious why you switched to CorelDraw before you sent it to the laser instead of using Illustrator? Thanks.
Thanks for the video. Just bought some borax to try to out.... I've been able to get really good engravings on that wood by doing two passes with my k40 (300mm/m 24%). It actually gives a 3d effect that looks amazing in person. I'll be using borax on my diode laser. Thanks again for the tutorial.
Hi There, great video! I have a Blue K40 OmTech, never changed out the display. So usually I burn photos on wood at 200 or 250mm/s and the power is set to 18% usually. How far should I drop that power down if I try the Borax method? Thanks!
Have you found it helpful to use this technique on solid wood? I have a client who wants an image engraved on 4” thick piece of ash that has both light and dark shades of color in the wood. I want to get an even, dark engraving on the surface. Would you recommend this technique for that application?
I would recommend you do tests first, or ask the customer to get a more uniformly colored piece of wood. I have customers bring me stiped wood all the time wanting to get it engrave and I explain that they will have varied results due to the species of wood,
5/8 of a cup. just bought ammonium bromide off ebay kinda cheap...heard it runs rings around borax. awesome vid btw. has anyone tried this on bristol or poster board 220-300gsm?
Great video, you definitely have a new subscriber here 👍🏻 You explain everything nice and clearly and definitely gonna give this a try when my S9 diode laser arrives in a few weeks. One thing though, as I’m here in the U.K., Borax is unavailable so trying to find an equivalent that’ll work just as well. Could you please tell me if Borax is just basically a concentrated washing detergent as can’t really tell from the box in your video? Other than that I see someone commented below that baking powder has similar results but I’d like to try and research an alternative further, maybe try Ajax which is a powdered cleaner with bleach? Many thanks and keep up the great video’s 👍🏻 Edit: A quick search on EBay and have found Borax here in the U.K. so all’s good but will experiment with other stuff to compare results
Hey Paul, I don't get ash residue when I'm doing this process, I wonder what would be causing that on your project. Feel free to shoot me an email at www.laserengraving911.com and we can talk more about it. Thanks!
There's no change in the wood cell structure as alluded to at 19:22. It's purely the additional carbon from the chemistry of borax or baking soda. That's why it works on pre-finished wood. Borax is also used for doing Lichtenbergs due to the carbon which allows better flow of electricity. WARNING: Not advocating the dangerous practice (read potentially deadly) of doing Lichtenbergs. Just providing some background info. Great video for yet another additional usage of Borax! Great explanation!
@mpkunz6336 Great and informative rant, lots good stuff in here, just one thing to be wary of I found this out the hard way years ago, do not try the amonium chloride in your laser system it will off gas and rust all Ferris metal parts in your system with w quickness. its great with heat guns and outdoor project where the gases cannot corrode the metal, but it a no no for the internals of your laser.. so don't try that one or any other chemicals that can off gas's corrosive gas's while its being lasered. Stay Safe fellow laser engravers.
I've used baking soda and it stains the wood yellow and from my understanding borax does not, and also works a little better. A simple search tells me borax is more acidic, not sure if that is why is works better. I look forward to trying it.
Very cool! I love to pre-finish some of my wood before lasering. Do you think this would still work with that application? Apply borax, dry, stain/seal, engrave?
@@LaserEngraving911 so it did work(sprayed with Borax solution, dried, stained with Unicorn Spit, dried, applied sealant, dried, engraved). However I did find that wiping with alcohol (what I typically do to remove any residue) wipes the darker black away or smears it around the engraving. That may be because I didn't get the borax solution to go deep enough, and had to make my engravings fairly shallow.
@@LaserEngraving911I had a problem with the borax solution. After the burn there was a lot of black residue like charcoal dust and I couldn't remove it without ruining the project. What casues that and how to I avoid it. I was using an XTOOOL D1 10 watt output diode laser. Also, is there a benefit to sanding wood prior to engraving it. I have been sanding to between 400 and 600 grit. Great videos and instruction. Thanks
@@williambarrett7544 Hey There, so I have not tried the boarx treatment with a diode laser so I cannot speak to that, in the video I'm using a Co2 laser for the instructional video. Its possible that the diode laser is reacting differently with the Borax, your power may have been too high as well, also is there a chance you might have been out of focus? or running your speed to slow, causing the laser to loiter too long in specific area causing over heating of the wood. I don't sand wood prior to engraving very often as I don't see the need, however I do sand afterward sometimes to clean the engraving up and then blow off with compressed air. Just light sanding with fine grit. Hope that helps answer some of your questions. Thanks for the support!
I’m still new to laser engraving. Here’s my question; if I wish to stain a piece of wood, should I stain first or after I laser engrave? Should I borax over the top of stain? What’s the sequence of events in other words? Thanks!
Best to engrave on clean wood no stains or pretreatment, Borax first, let it dry, engrave, gently clean surface, then you can apply stain or any other finishes after that is all done
You should not have to clean soot up, in the video I don't do any clean up. I would check your mix ratio, also not sure if your using a diode laser, which might cause more soot, in the video I'm using a Co2 laser. also check you focus power and speed Thanks!
@@LaserEngraving911 thanks its a thunder 100 watt cop laser with the hd lense.....and lots of soot ...250ml Borax to 2 tablespoons of water.... advice muchly appreciated
The setting are accessed om the Epilog Job Control Manager. Yes I have tried the Ammonium Chloride, and I highly recommend that you DO NOT TRY THIS, the fumes it create will rust the internal component of your machine, and ruin the machine.
I want to do a photo of my daughter's dog, he is black any suggestions on how to get him to show up on the wood and not be extremely dark and not able to make out his features or is that impossible to do on wood? Would really appreciate your thoughts.
Yes that is a tricky one I have struggled myself with black dog in the past. I feel you. You will want to do some post processing to the original picture and make it less black before dumping in into what ever program you are going to use to convert to bitmap. Photoshop is good for this, try to focus on highlighting the lines of the dog as well not just the black fur, and starting with a high resolution picture make a world of difference too!
It appears that since I made this video, they no longer have the option to buy the software outright which I did, however you can buy the offline version for 1 year license for 49.00 here , hope that helps. design-gecko.com/product/offline/
I tried this technique and it worked. However, the black image was easily rubbed off with my fingers or rag. Is there a way to seal it so the black doesn't run? Thanks
Have you tried photos with a baking soda/water mixture? I'm curious how they compare to the borax, as I have tried the baking soda and gotten similar results. I will have to try the borax next time.
Hi mate, I start using borax for my text and picture projects, unfortunately I figure out this , the graving is darker , absolutely black . But when I touch the surface I easily wash down and do a mess on clear areas of wood , how to deal with this ? Should I use less borax ? Or higher power ? Thanks for advice
I tried this and it came out great. But I had a huge amount of soot on the burn that left it unable to be touched without smudging everything. Have you had this happen? Did I do something wrong? Do you have any tricks for sealing or cleaning the soot off without it smudging the entire print? Thanks.
I'm having the same issue with my glowforge using baltic wood and mdf. I tried a lot with different speed and power but it does not make any differences. I also watched other youtube videos about borax and baking soda and they all seem to have the same problem. Diode or Co2. It seems to smear for both, The only solution is to seal the borax in so it does not smear. Do you use some clear coat or something similar to seal it? Thanks for the great youtube video!
@@jeremyanold491 Its hard to say since I have note tried this on either a glowforge or a diode laser, but one thing is constant with both of those machine and that they can only go so fast, and the laser I'm using has extremely high speeds. So it might have something to do do with those machine inability to run at high speed causing the laser to hang out to long over the treated area, just a thought. or somehow the fan that is constantly blowing on the surface is affecting the engraving, I have never had the soot issue, on my machine.
So once i upload it to lightburn do i still need to make the adjustments?.or is it just upload and hitt the laser? I know dpi has to be the same ..but i mean as far as contrast, brightness and all that?.also for the regular pic and the borax style did you change any of the power, speed and min power settings? Or they you keep them the same.
Once you process the photo in ImagR and save it as a bitmap, you can load it into light burn as is, but you will need to look at my settings in the video to see what power and speed Im using with my 120watt laser and then extrapolate that setting to work with your laser wattage and your laser speed.
@@LaserEngraving911 so i got a few portraits and they do look alot better for sure but my portraits have this burnt layer ontop when i brush it it removed the whole effect leaving only a darker effect than the sepia..and yes im using that cheap basswood type...on your pic i can tell it has different shades
@@DJFedor-zg3kb There are lots of tutorials on YT for converting photos to bitmap without ImagR , lots! for your system I would start at 20% power and work up in 5% intervals until you see the result you want. 👍👍
I was worried about messing up these only two cutting boards I had. This worked flawlessly. Thank You!
Nice job!!
I have a bunch of thin plywood from various sources that I collected. Finally have something to do with them. I am glad I watched this so I didn’t get frustrated and give up.
Nice, !!!
I'm so glad you said it's not a surface mark. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people suggest using Borax to new users and someone else comes along and says it's just creating more soot! 😞
Phenomenal tips for this noob! You saved me hours and hours of dithering!
Nice, glad it helped!
New to laser printing and ironically just purchased a few of these small panels to get my feet wet, good to know and try it out! Thanks.
Nice!
That is super helpful my dude thank you ...i use a borax solution for fractal burning but i was unaware of using it for lazer engraving
Glad I could help, hope you can do some cool stuff with this method!
awesome..........................I definitely will be useing this trick...Thank You so much.....
Nice!
What a great training video. I've been laser engraving for a while but never had much luck with photos. This video has me excited to try it again. Thank you!
Thanks, I was wondering the ratio of water/borax... You explain well, great job.
Thanks for this video and the information. I have not heard anyone else discuss this.
Awesome! TY
Great video. Im going to try it today! But if i could make a quick suggestion to save you some time. saving it as a jpeg rasterizes the image, So all the work you did in illustrator was just cancelled out.
You could have just typed it in photoshop. I did however enjoy the process though so thanks for the tips!
You sir, are amazing! Thank you so much for bringing me out of the wilderness.
This is awesome. Going to try it on the Snapmaker. Do you clean the soot off of the products?
Got a 2.5W diode laser coming with my 3018. I will be trying this out for sure. Might take a bit longer.
thank you, this was very helpful.
I have not yet completed a photo engraving but now am better set to complete that task :-)
I am so glad I found your channel.
Woo hooo!
Great Video, I'm new to lazer engraving, can't wait to try the borax.
Good luck! Have fun!
Trickery! I knew it :D thanks for the vid LE911
Welcome!
So glad to see this. I’m just getting started in this and love the tricks your sharing.
Awesome!
Awesome job at explaining the process to someone that's new to laser engraving. Thanks from down under Regards John
Thanks for the helpful tips!
No problem!
Thanks so much for this - super excited to make my first attempt at this
Awesome!
Hi! I’m a newbie and I just lucked up on your channel. Really great content. Can you use this borax treatment on cutting boards. If so, how do you get the borax out of the board so that the cutting board is food safe? Or is that a problem?
I would not use this on food surfaces. Its mainly for decorative use only. If your looking to darken the engraving on cutting boards, you should watch my video on top ten pro tips on wood ruclips.net/video/owQSpQRGPn0/видео.html
WOW! thx so much! Technique test run on 60w Epilog coming shortly. Hope🤞I still have at last a spoonfull of Borax remaining in cleaning supply cabinet😁
First, thank you for a tremendous video. Very helpful. Do you believe borax would hold up for a monogram on a cutting board. Would you consider the end result to be food safe?
From everything I've seen, you do not want to use this method on anything that will be used for consumption. Even sealing the wood first, then engraving it, applying borax, engraving again, then sealing again is still risky.
cool info! thanks! i was just in Boron, California at the plant
😜
Great video 911. Thank you for the information.
Thank You!
Hi,
Congratulations for the video using borax, have you good formulatrion to engrave glass wine and obtain real white letter or real black letter ? Some guy suggest Cermark product this is high cost and spray is not very useful or easy to use. Regards.
Oh That's a tricky one, Co2 lasers do a pretty good job at getting a white mark on glass all by them selves, now black marks, you could use a laser spray like Brilliance laser inks instead of the expensive Cermark spray brilliancelaserinks.com/?ref=CJRUrI-5EsXfqA much more affordable and it allows you to mark on metals as well as glass as you can see in my other video ruclips.net/video/d1bBxD_Y_nU/видео.html other than those options not sure how you woudl get a black mark on glass with sand etching by hand and filling with enamel paint by hand. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the good work, man. One question pops up here: why did you use Illustrator and not photoshops build in text tool. It has its limitations, but adding some simple text when you finally export as jpg using AI is unnecessary. Was there a reason beside showing some "nice to know" tools?
Good Question! The truth is I like working with font and text in Illustrator and am more proficient in Adobe Illustrator than Photoshop, I have my limitations as well I'm not ashamed to admit,, always learning!
For the text part, why not select "Type>Create Outlines" then choose "Unite" instead of merge? That always works for me.
Borax has been challenging to me for some reason so now I'm wondering how to do multicolor paint fill techniques at 50 DPI. Basically get a good 1950s comic book level of quality half tone.
awesome, just good old proper useful information, Bravo!
Nice video. Since you use an Epilog (not certain if yours is CO2 or other) do all your videos generally apply equally as well when using a CO2 Laser? I just received a Thunder Laser 130w unit and realize settings will be different between machines but thought I would ask the question. Also, curious why you switched to CorelDraw before you sent it to the laser instead of using Illustrator? Thanks.
Killin it bro! ⚡⚡⚡I remember back in the day we couldn't get that to work - glad you figured it out. Really good job!
fo sho!! glad you liked it !
@@LaserEngraving911 hell yeah keep bringing the fire!
Thanks for the video. Just bought some borax to try to out....
I've been able to get really good engravings on that wood by doing two passes with my k40 (300mm/m 24%). It actually gives a 3d effect that looks amazing in person.
I'll be using borax on my diode laser. Thanks again for the tutorial.
woo hoo! Thanks for your support on my channel
Thank you so much for the very informative video. Would you think this would also work on MDF ?
Great video! I know Borax is cheap but if you make a batch of it do you store it or make it fresh every time? Thanks!
fresh batch each time, it does not store, it crystalizes.
Thank you for the training videos, it is informative and enlightening. This will help my business go a long way :-}
You are so welcome!
Hi There, great video! I have a Blue K40 OmTech, never changed out the display. So usually I burn photos on wood at 200 or 250mm/s and the power is set to 18% usually. How far should I drop that power down if I try the Borax method? Thanks!
start lowest power fastest speed, work your way up with tests to get best result and save setting when you get to where you need to be.
Night and day.thank you
Have you found it helpful to use this technique on solid wood? I have a client who wants an image engraved on 4” thick piece of ash that has both light and dark shades of color in the wood. I want to get an even, dark engraving on the surface. Would you recommend this technique for that application?
I would recommend you do tests first, or ask the customer to get a more uniformly colored piece of wood. I have customers bring me stiped wood all the time wanting to get it engrave and I explain that they will have varied results due to the species of wood,
Do you wipe the image down before adding a finish and if so what do you use?
Very cool tip - lasers + chemistry :)
Great video. Thanks!
5/8 of a cup. just bought ammonium bromide off ebay kinda cheap...heard it runs rings around borax. awesome vid btw. has anyone tried this on bristol or poster board 220-300gsm?
Great job and enjoy your videos!
Thank you!
great vid bro
Thanks so much for watching!
Wow. Great project and video. Lots of useful tips in here.
Killing it !
Great video, you definitely have a new subscriber here 👍🏻
You explain everything nice and clearly and definitely gonna give this a try when my S9 diode laser arrives in a few weeks. One thing though, as I’m here in the U.K., Borax is unavailable so trying to find an equivalent that’ll work just as well.
Could you please tell me if Borax is just basically a concentrated washing detergent as can’t really tell from the box in your video? Other than that I see someone commented below that baking powder has similar results but I’d like to try and research an alternative further, maybe try Ajax which is a powdered cleaner with bleach?
Many thanks and keep up the great video’s 👍🏻
Edit: A quick search on EBay and have found Borax here in the U.K. so all’s good but will experiment with other stuff to compare results
I'm in UK and buy borax regularly......
@@ashpollen65 as stated in my edit 👍🏻
@@OutfoxedYa oops, sorry I missed that 👍
Great tutorial mate! Thanks for sharing!
Great video!
Thanks!
Nice.... I'll have to try this
1Tbls / 5oz HOT water gives good results as shown. Does changing the concentration of Borax change the contrast?
It might, but too much will be over kill, and less will not be enough, that I I recommend this ratio.
Wondering how you clean off the ash residue without spreading it on yhe clean areas
Hey Paul, I don't get ash residue when I'm doing this process, I wonder what would be causing that on your project. Feel free to shoot me an email at www.laserengraving911.com and we can talk more about it. Thanks!
New to all of this, but how does the borax effect any sort of protetice sealant you might use?
I would experiment with it, there are lots of sealers out there, some might have better results than others. Thanks for the question!
Does the solution apply better when warm or was that just for mixing? Can you use the rest of the solution later?
Its was just for mixing it. You can use the solution later, for a few days, but it will crystallize back after a few days.
Great video by the way
There's no change in the wood cell structure as alluded to at 19:22. It's purely the additional carbon from the chemistry of borax or baking soda. That's why it works on pre-finished wood.
Borax is also used for doing Lichtenbergs due to the carbon which allows better flow of electricity. WARNING: Not advocating the dangerous practice (read potentially deadly) of doing Lichtenbergs. Just providing some background info.
Great video for yet another additional usage of Borax! Great explanation!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
@mpkunz6336 Great and informative rant, lots good stuff in here, just one thing to be wary of I found this out the hard way years ago, do not try the amonium chloride in your laser system it will off gas and rust all Ferris metal parts in your system with w quickness. its great with heat guns and outdoor project where the gases cannot corrode the metal, but it a no no for the internals of your laser.. so don't try that one or any other chemicals that can off gas's corrosive gas's while its being lasered. Stay Safe fellow laser engravers.
I've used baking soda and it stains the wood yellow and from my understanding borax does not, and also works a little better. A simple search tells me borax is more acidic, not sure if that is why is works better. I look forward to trying it.
Great information. Thank you
Eggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggslent !!Thanx for sharing
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannk You! 🤣
Yet another use for borax, that stuff is amazing
Glad you liked it!
Liking your videos very much. Thank you!
Happy to hear that!
I'll give it a shot, thanks.
Very cool! I love to pre-finish some of my wood before lasering. Do you think this would still work with that application? Apply borax, dry, stain/seal, engrave?
Its worth a shot, test first of course, not sure if the Borax would interfere with the stain and sealer, keep us posted on how it goes!
@@LaserEngraving911 so it did work(sprayed with Borax solution, dried, stained with Unicorn Spit, dried, applied sealant, dried, engraved). However I did find that wiping with alcohol (what I typically do to remove any residue) wipes the darker black away or smears it around the engraving. That may be because I didn't get the borax solution to go deep enough, and had to make my engravings fairly shallow.
@@LaserEngraving911I had a problem with the borax solution. After the burn there was a lot of black residue like charcoal dust and I couldn't remove it without ruining the project. What casues that and how to I avoid it. I was using an XTOOOL D1 10 watt output diode laser. Also, is there a benefit to sanding wood prior to engraving it. I have been sanding to between 400 and 600 grit. Great videos and instruction. Thanks
@@williambarrett7544 Hey There, so I have not tried the boarx treatment with a diode laser so I cannot speak to that, in the video I'm using a Co2 laser for the instructional video. Its possible that the diode laser is reacting differently with the Borax, your power may have been too high as well, also is there a chance you might have been out of focus? or running your speed to slow, causing the laser to loiter too long in specific area causing over heating of the wood. I don't sand wood prior to engraving very often as I don't see the need, however I do sand afterward sometimes to clean the engraving up and then blow off with compressed air. Just light sanding with fine grit. Hope that helps answer some of your questions. Thanks for the support!
@@LaserEngraving911 Thank you so much for your help.
I’m still new to laser engraving. Here’s my question; if I wish to stain a piece of wood, should I stain first or after I laser engrave? Should I borax over the top of stain? What’s the sequence of events in other words?
Thanks!
Did you ever figure this out? I’m wondering the same thing.
Best to engrave on clean wood no stains or pretreatment, Borax first, let it dry, engrave, gently clean surface, then you can apply stain or any other finishes after that is all done
could you share how to clean after layering as its very sooty and I'm using wood
You should not have to clean soot up, in the video I don't do any clean up. I would check your mix ratio, also not sure if your using a diode laser, which might cause more soot, in the video I'm using a Co2 laser. also check you focus power and speed Thanks!
@@LaserEngraving911 thanks its a thunder 100 watt cop laser with the hd lense.....and lots of soot ...250ml Borax to 2 tablespoons of water.... advice muchly appreciated
co2 100 watt laser sorry , bloody auto correct hehe
@@patdennis4576 Mess around with the ratio a bit lower the borax see if that helps, also lower your power step up your speed.
You can scale the resolution of an image without changing it's size in PS. No need to for cropping.
After you get done with the one bcrack how do you clean it off the afterpoint
No additional clean up necessary, on my system.
How did you get to the settings for the Epilog M2 Fusion Laser? Have you tried using Ammonium Chloride to get the burn effect?
The setting are accessed om the Epilog Job Control Manager. Yes I have tried the Ammonium Chloride, and I highly recommend that you DO NOT TRY THIS, the fumes it create will rust the internal component of your machine, and ruin the machine.
I used cold water, paper towel, and lasered it wet. The fan from the laser seems to dry it.
Does this work on leather?
I want to do a photo of my daughter's dog, he is black any suggestions on how to get him to show up on the wood and not be extremely dark and not able to make out his features or is that impossible to do on wood? Would really appreciate your thoughts.
Yes that is a tricky one I have struggled myself with black dog in the past. I feel you. You will want to do some post processing to the original picture and make it less black before dumping in into what ever program you are going to use to convert to bitmap. Photoshop is good for this, try to focus on highlighting the lines of the dog as well not just the black fur, and starting with a high resolution picture make a world of difference too!
Why after making the engraving... I pass the finger and stain... do you put some protector on it afterwards?
What type of laser are you using? Can you share the model a, wattage, and make?
How did you purchase the imagr software. Please provide a link.
It appears that since I made this video, they no longer have the option to buy the software outright which I did, however you can buy the offline version for 1 year license for 49.00 here , hope that helps. design-gecko.com/product/offline/
I tried this technique and it worked. However, the black image was easily rubbed off with my fingers or rag. Is there a way to seal it so the black doesn't run? Thanks
I have not ever had to seal it, but if I did I would use some polyurethane spray
Great explanation!
Aquanet does the same thing. Easier to apply and no prep needed. Dries quickly too.
That sounds cool will have to try that!
I wonder if any cheap hairspray would do it is has to be that brand?
Have you tried photos with a baking soda/water mixture? I'm curious how they compare to the borax, as I have tried the baking soda and gotten similar results. I will have to try the borax next time.
No haven't tried that, but I have tried alot of other mixed and this one seems to be the best and easiest for sure.
WILL YOU BE DOING A POWER COAT ACRYLIC VIDEO?
Hi There, Since the process is the same for acrylic as it is for wood I dont see a need for that video at this time, thank you for your support!
@@LaserEngraving911 Thank you. Really enjoy all your videos!
excellent
Thank you! Cheers!
Does baking soda have the same effect, if you know?
I cannot say because I have not tried it.
Does it work with diode lasers as well as CO2 laser
Its can yes, I know people who have done this.
Can you reuse the mixture a few days later or do you have to start over with a new batch each time?
new batch each time.
@@LaserEngraving911 thank you!
Is it working on poliuretane leather too? Thank you!
I wonder how this would work on stretched artist canvas.
Prob not too well, it might get a little charry and smudgy
Hi mate, I start using borax for my text and picture projects, unfortunately I figure out this , the graving is darker , absolutely black . But when I touch the surface I easily wash down and do a mess on clear areas of wood , how to deal with this ? Should I use less borax ? Or higher power ? Thanks for advice
Hi There, what is your laser model and power? and speed?
@@LaserEngraving911
Omtech 80w . I use mostly speed around 250-300 mm and power 15-20%
What other materials can you use borax on for engraving?
Just tried on wood, might work on other materials, but also might change the other materials in a negative way when applied, who knows!
Great video. Thanks.
Thank You sir!
if i use borax is necessary clean the wood when the engrave in finish?
not really.
I tried this and it came out great. But I had a huge amount of soot on the burn that left it unable to be touched without smudging everything. Have you had this happen? Did I do something wrong? Do you have any tricks for sealing or cleaning the soot off without it smudging the entire print? Thanks.
Its hard to say without knowing what laser you are using power and speed settings, and the type of wood as well.
I'm having the same issue with my glowforge using baltic wood and mdf. I tried a lot with different speed and power but it does not make any differences. I also watched other youtube videos about borax and baking soda and they all seem to have the same problem. Diode or Co2. It seems to smear for both, The only solution is to seal the borax in so it does not smear. Do you use some clear coat or something similar to seal it? Thanks for the great youtube video!
@@jeremyanold491 Its hard to say since I have note tried this on either a glowforge or a diode laser, but one thing is constant with both of those machine and that they can only go so fast, and the laser I'm using has extremely high speeds. So it might have something to do do with those machine inability to run at high speed causing the laser to hang out to long over the treated area, just a thought. or somehow the fan that is constantly blowing on the surface is affecting the engraving, I have never had the soot issue, on my machine.
Good video, thank you.
So once i upload it to lightburn do i still need to make the adjustments?.or is it just upload and hitt the laser? I know dpi has to be the same ..but i mean as far as contrast, brightness and all that?.also for the regular pic and the borax style did you change any of the power, speed and min power settings? Or they you keep them the same.
Once you process the photo in ImagR and save it as a bitmap, you can load it into light burn as is, but you will need to look at my settings in the video to see what power and speed Im using with my 120watt laser and then extrapolate that setting to work with your laser wattage and your laser speed.
@@LaserEngraving911 so i got a few portraits and they do look alot better for sure but my portraits have this burnt layer ontop when i brush it it removed the whole effect leaving only a darker effect than the sepia..and yes im using that cheap basswood type...on your pic i can tell it has different shades
What settings would you use for a 60 W Universal?
And is there any way to get a photo to the BitMap stage without the ImagR program?
@@DJFedor-zg3kb There are lots of tutorials on YT for converting photos to bitmap without ImagR , lots! for your system I would start at 20% power and work up in 5% intervals until you see the result you want. 👍👍
10 tablespoons is about 2/3 cup
Thank you.
Hey! I tried to access (several times) the site link you have posted for imagr , never would open, any suggestions?
check out the facebook group they have a dedicated group with lots of info
I know this is a pretty old video but, in lightburn, what image type do you use? Grayscale, Jarvis, newsprint?
Great job, thank you!
Thank you too!
Does this work for diode lasers as well?
Yes, it can 👌
@@LaserEngraving911 awesome thanks 👍