Anybody here tried deep engraving natural marble ? By deep i mean 1-3mm deep, not just surface mark.
I have 100W co2 here, done some marble before, usually in one pass for 0.25-0.5mm, never tried going deeper. Anybody tried ? What are the results ? Does marble burn (as the case with slate, it turns brown with too much power)?
Pick up some scraps from a local stone supplier and test.
What did it do when you did your project. I would expect it to do the same with more passes, and possibly more power. So what if it turns black, you are going to paint fill it anyhow, right?
By the way, that is a really nice looking project.
I’ve never tried marble, but I assume it lases OK or you couldn’t make the grove.
I’ve done this, on a rock, using powder coating. Brush it on after you make the grove and brush the powder coating into the engraved area and lase again, rinse/repeat.
The marbles i’d done so far were about 0.1-0.3mm deep for paint fill, so it worked fine. The old runs were done on 80w tube but about 30% power/200ish mmps speed (if memory serves). Now i run 100W tube.
I have a potential order of a lot of BIG stones to do. Single piece would take whole bed of 900x600) but they want a deep engrave of 3mm. Slabs are thin too (~12mm thick), which makes me worry about localised thermal expansion/shock situation.
As for fibering stones i did only couple of times, but got a weird stone that, despite having a good extraction (rigged up bouncy castle blower to suck air at machine), was throwing sand explosions all the way to the lens which is ~300mm up from the job. Dont want to wreck the quartz lens so stopped.
I would try a higher speed and multiple passes. Take out a little at a time. If you try to do it in one pass, you will likely get a Jack Rock result. I can imagine the panic when that thing popped.
Already been said, but testing can save you from scrapping a good slab of marble.
I can imagine the panic when that thing popped.