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!
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! 😞
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.
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😁
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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!
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.
For anyone interested: density of borax (decahydrate) is 1.73 g/ml. In the video he used 1 tablespoon which is 15 ml. Therefore 15 ml x 1.73 g/ml = 25.95 g borax. Also, he used 10 tablespoons of water: 10 x 15 ml = 150 ml. The concentration of borax in the mixture is there 25.95 g/150 ml = 0.173 or 17.3% (w/v or g/ml).
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.
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/
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
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
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!
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
@@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 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 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,
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!
Is this a solution I can do a big batch of and leave in a spray bottle? Wanting to try that vs making it each time. I'll try and comment back results in a few weeks if it works still
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!
Wow. Great project and video. Lots of useful tips in here.
You sir, are amazing! Thank you so much for bringing me out of the wilderness.
Awesome job at explaining the process to someone that's new to laser engraving. Thanks from down under Regards John
thank you, this was very helpful.
I have not yet completed a photo engraving but now am better set to complete that task :-)
So glad to see this. I’m just getting started in this and love the tricks your sharing.
Awesome!
Great tutorial mate! Thanks for sharing!
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! 😞
Trickery! I knew it :D thanks for the vid LE911
Welcome!
Killing it !
Great information. Thank you
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!
Great video. Thanks!
Great job and enjoy your videos!
Thank you!
Phenomenal tips for this noob! You saved me hours and hours of dithering!
Nice, glad it helped!
Great video 911. Thank you for the information.
Thank You!
Great explanation!
Thanks for this video and the information. I have not heard anyone else discuss this.
Awesome! TY
Great video by the way
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!
Thanks so much for this - super excited to make my first attempt at this
Awesome!
awesome..........................I definitely will be useing this trick...Thank You so much.....
Nice!
Great Video, I'm new to lazer engraving, can't wait to try the borax.
Good luck! Have fun!
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, !!!
Thanks for the helpful tips!
No problem!
Nice.... I'll have to try this
Liking your videos very much. Thank you!
Happy to hear that!
Very cool tip - lasers + chemistry :)
Good video, thank you.
I am so glad I found your channel.
Woo hooo!
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😁
I'll give it a shot, thanks.
Thank you for the training videos, it is informative and enlightening. This will help my business go a long way :-}
You are so welcome!
Super Video..Danke
Great video. Thanks.
Thank You sir!
Great job, thank you!
Thank you too!
cool info! thanks! i was just in Boron, California at the plant
😜
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!
Thanks, I was wondering the ratio of water/borax... You explain well, great job.
Great video!
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.
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 vid bro
Thanks so much for watching!
Got a 2.5W diode laser coming with my 3018. I will be trying this out for sure. Might take a bit longer.
This is awesome. Going to try it on the Snapmaker. Do you clean the soot off of the products?
Thank you.
Eggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggslent !!Thanx for sharing
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannk You! 🤣
For the text part, why not select "Type>Create Outlines" then choose "Unite" instead of merge? That always works for me.
Night and day.thank you
Awesome
Awesome!
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!
excellent
Thank you! Cheers!
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.
Is it working on poliuretane leather too? Thank you!
Yet another use for borax, that stuff is amazing
Glad you liked it!
I know this is a pretty old video but, in lightburn, what image type do you use? Grayscale, Jarvis, newsprint?
10 tablespoons is about 2/3 cup
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?
Do you wipe the image down before adding a finish and if so what do you use?
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.
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.
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 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.
Does this work on leather?
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.
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.
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!
10 TBSP's = 5 ounces or ~148 ml's for the metric folks
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.
By the way, the concentration of borax is 20% (weight/volume; w/v). In this video, the concentration is 17.3% w/v, so close enough.
For anyone interested: density of borax (decahydrate) is 1.73 g/ml. In the video he used 1 tablespoon which is 15 ml. Therefore 15 ml x 1.73 g/ml = 25.95 g borax. Also, he used 10 tablespoons of water: 10 x 15 ml = 150 ml. The concentration of borax in the mixture is there 25.95 g/150 ml = 0.173 or 17.3% (w/v or g/ml).
nice!
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?
I used cold water, paper towel, and lasered it wet. The fan from the laser seems to dry it.
10 TBSP is 4.999 oz or 5 oz of water.
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.
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!
Will this work with a diode laser?
After you get done with the one bcrack how do you clean it off the afterpoint
No additional clean up necessary, on my system.
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.
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/
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?
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
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!
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
Does baking soda have the same effect, if you know?
I cannot say because I have not tried 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?
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.
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
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. 👍👍
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
I wonder how this would work on stretched artist canvas.
Prob not too well, it might get a little charry and smudgy
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,
I bet if you could airbrush that borax onto other substrates it would work as well. ie: glass, tile, etc.
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
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!
What if I only want to engrave a small portion of the wood? Do you treat the whole piece or just the area you want to engrave?
Either would be ok I would think.
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.
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!
5 oz hot water to one tbs Borax.
Does it work with diode lasers as well as CO2 laser
Its can yes, I know people who have done this.
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!
Is this a solution I can do a big batch of and leave in a spray bottle? Wanting to try that vs making it each time. I'll try and comment back results in a few weeks if it works still
Yes, once the wood is treated and dry you can set it on the shelf for use later, no problem!
@@LaserEngraving911 that would be much easier than what I was going to do lol. Thanks man