First real test on Pine. It is a wider board and it is several pieces glued together.
I have the speed at 80 inches/min and power at 80%.
I know it will be light on the board. Which it is. I have a picture of it but not sure if I can attache it. I am seeing that there are some very light spots that are occurring on some of the grain in this board.
I have tried bumping up the power and that didn’t seem to work.
Is this something in the initial set up of the layer that I need to change?
This is just the first try at a bigger test.
The board is flat. I checked it.
If you are talking about it not marking on the harder grain, this is normal and there is not much you can do about it. More dense requires more power, but neither the laser nor Lightburn know where to apply it… This is why fine grained woods, like Baltic Birch, are so popular.
I haven’t tried them myself yet, but I’ve read from people reporting better success by using one, or a combo, of the following…
1 defocus
2 pretreat with mineral oil (possibly other oil treatments)
3 baking soda/water wash
4 borax/water wash
Til now I’ve been deep engraving and using a colored epoxy fill but that’s not always appropriate and I have a job scheduled in the next week or two that will require me experimenting with the techniques above.
Laser Dark is a spray on color treatment that can be used to even the color on engraving. Laserdark.com
Use with a masking material.
Engrave
Spray
When dry and satisfied with the color depth, remove the remaining mask. Color is consistent. Depth however depends on your settings.
For my uses, I usually run the laser slower and hotter and of course, use multiple passes to get the depth needed. Each piece of material will have its own settings, that is part of the challenge .
Being the first real test and using my laser, I understand what everyone is saying. So, If I just want to not have this problem it is Baltic Birch or Laserdark !!
Pine is notorious for this type of engraving inconsistencies, it’s all related to the grain of the wood and how the laser beam reacts. There’s no way that I’ve found to get around it just with power/speed settings. Basically every pieces of wood is going to react different.
I have had good success using a borax and water solution on the board first though. It makes a nice black engraving when you get the settings right. It’s more of a superficial surface mark though. If you engrave too deep into the wood where the borax doesn’t penetrate it can look blotchy.
You’ll have to experiment a little to see what you like best. If you want to try borax I would treat a board and run multiple material tests to see what you like best.
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