Full Version: Fiberglass Settings?

From: Vicky (ANDERI) [#1]
 13 Apr 2007
To: ALL

Hey all,

Had a fellow walk in today asking if I could laser engrave some text onto a pool cue. He was told this cue has a wood core with a fiberglass overlay. Does anyone have any settings for rastering fiberglass that I can start with? We'll be filling it with some gold Rub 'N' Buff after lasering, so it doesn't matter what it looks like underneath, as long as it has neat edges.

Thanks!
:-)

From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#2]
 13 Apr 2007
To: Vicky (ANDERI) [#1] 13 Apr 2007

I tried engraving and cutting some circuit board fiberglass, which is a "fire retardent" fiberglass. It was extremely difficult. It flared up and scorched long before getting any depth.

I guess there are a lot of fiberglass resins, so it will depend a lot on the type used in that piece. But be prepared. You might get a lot of flames and char with little depth.

From: Mick [#3]
 13 Apr 2007
To: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#2] 13 Apr 2007

Fibreglass resins are usually polyester

From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#4]
 13 Apr 2007
To: Mick [#3] 13 Apr 2007

The fiberglass I was trying it on was either FR-4 or G-10 circuit board fiberglass. Circuit board fiberglass typically uses epoxy resins, so may give very different results from what the pool cue uses.

What I'm also remembering now about doing it was watching the resin turn liquid long before the cloth was effected, and the cloth scorching much wider than the beam, long before the beam made a dent in it.

That may just be because I was doing it to a circuit board fiberglass, but I suspect no matter what the resin, the power needed to effect the glass cloth is far higher than needed to melt the resin.

From: Vicky (ANDERI) [#5]
 14 Apr 2007
To: Vicky (ANDERI) [#1] 14 Apr 2007

Well, we gave it a shot. Lovely black pool cue. The laser ended up "frosting" the top layer of the finish, I believe. The result was a nice, crisp, white text on a black cue. Bottom line, it worked well, took about 5 minutes including set-up, the customer was thrilled, and I didn't have to replace a $200 cue. :-)

From: Hermes (HERMESSANDOVAL) [#6]
 14 Apr 2007
To: Vicky (ANDERI) [#5] 14 Apr 2007

It's good to hear it came out right. I'm engraving 500+ pieces of kitchen utensils right now and most of them are covered with graphite, like this setup you've just described, it looked like it could go really wrong, but ended up engraved very nice in less than 3 minutes, setup not included.

Keep on experimenting, learning never stops with lasers.

From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#7]
 14 Apr 2007
To: Vicky (ANDERI) [#5] 14 Apr 2007

Excellent!

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