I am using the Ortur Master 2 Pro with Lightburn. I want to engrave Glencairn glasses but I am not sure what to use on the glass such as masking material, tape, paint etc to get a good quality engraving…
They’re expensive so I would like to avoid “trial and error” as much as possible.
Are you planning on using the Ortur YRR roller rotary add on?
Where, on the glass’s perimeter are you planning to engrave? If on the maximum diameter then you may be ok, any other portion of that glass will be difficult trying to match the changing diameter and Z dimension.
Having said that, I’ve had some success using black Water soluble Arcylic paint, air brushed on to the surface and then exposing it with my 30W Laser module. I think there is enough tolerance in the process that it should also work with a 20W module. Let me know and I’ll try to scale my numbers to match your laser.
I’ve only etched glass in testing and I just used painters tape. You can either put the tape on the inside/backside of the glass you are etching and las(e(r))? through the glass so that it etches the inside, or put the tape outside and burn through it. Here are some tests I ran…
Line, through tape…
Fill, through glass…
These were done with a NEJE 30watt (7watt output) diode laser at 100% power, and if I remember correctly, 100 and 200mm/min.
Here’s a link to my thread over at V1Engineering with more detailed info.
Yeah, I was looking at the shape of that glass wondering how that’s gonna work. There’s actually a fairly straight section that could be engraved pretty easily… if you can figure a way to keep the glass on the rollers and be stable.
Within the band shown below it would be easy on a chuck type rotary. It’ll be challenging on a hot dog roller.
Honestly, if you haven’t done much (or any) glassware yet on this machine, I would suggest you visit the local “Dollar Store” and pick up $10 worth of cheap glasses to practice on before you commit to zapping an expensive set of nice glassware.
I’m not an expert but I’ve done a bit of glassware with a CO2 laser and doing a “nice job” takes some trial & error & practice. And I don’t think using a diode laser is going to make it any easier.
Get some big straight sided 16 oz beer glasses that have lots of surface area for you to practice on and zap the same logo or whatever all around them at different settings and with different glass prep treatments (since you’re using a diode) until you find what works nicely. Once you can do a consistently clean job on $1 glasses, then have a go at your pricey stuff.
Just my opinion FWIW.
I just found your thread with those glasses. Nice!
Good find, @Hank, but OP would need to adjust their artwork to account for the difference in diameter at the top and bottom. Given the relative straight line, a simple trapezoidal transformation should work.
Also, I agree with experimenting with some cheap glasses first. I followed your advice on that and was able to come up with a process with a single glass.
Yes I will be using the Ortur Rotary tool. Placement options depending on the design requested:
Thank you I will do that.
Thank you for the info. You are apprecieated.
On my 30W system I used 910mm/min @70% exposure. You might start around 600mm/min on your 20W laser, but might need to slow down a bit more.
This was on water soluble black acrylic paint, airbrushed on the surface, Fill mode, 2.5% overscan, 0.1mm line interval.
I think that some of those placement options are going to be difficult if not impossible. The tall pink one especially just covers too much curvature.
The depth of focus on a diode laser is shallow to begin with and you are going to have a vary large variation in distance from laser to glass with such a curvy glass.
If you were just doing lines of text where you could do a line or 2 then readjust the glass to put another area in good focus before doing the next line you could get away with it, but to do a single logo in one shot without readjusting the glass to keep the focus distance reasonable is going to be… challenging.
Again, experimentation on cheap glassware to see what you can “get away with” is going to be a good thing.
Yeah, it may be desirable to skew the artwork to make it fit the diameter of the glass better.
I have kind of mixed results with that. SOME designs seem to look best when they’re adjusted to fit the taper and some seem to look better when you leave them alone and they look “wrong” when adjusted to be mathematically correct fit. Trial and error and experimentation…
LOL! Yeah, that dang ‘Art’ always seems to rear its ugly head at the wrong time!
Cheers!
You could always cut a stencil and use glass etching cream.
I have been sandblasing on these glasses. I’m trying to get much smaller type on them.
This is my fear. I am assuming now that the glasses I have seen engraved were done with a CO2 machine and not a blue diode. Thank you for your assistance.
Well, certainly lots of folks do get nice results on glass with a diode laser.
It usually involves some kind of coating to help the glass absorb the laser energy.
I think your biggest challenge will be maintaining decent focus on such a “curvy” glass as what you’ve pictured.
I would start with some big straight sided glasses where I didn’t have to worry about focus so much and practice technique and power settings until I could get consistent good results.
Then I’d take that knowledge and move on to a cheap wine glass that has a good bit of curvature to it and work on finding out how much depth of focus I’ve really got and how much curvature I can get way with.
Once I had that figured out then I’d move on to the big $$ glassware
There’s almost certainly going to be some failure involved. Don’t let it frustrate you, just use it as a good learning opportunity.
And if you get stuck, ask. Probably someone can offer good advise.
Most of all, have fun with the learning process!
The greatest teacher, failure is. – Yoda
I could never get the wine glasses I was working on to rotate on the roller very well. I sent the rotary setup back. You will play hell trying to get the “horizontal” part of that glass to stay horizontal as it rotates. good luck.
Yeah, I’m also thinking that’s going to be a bit of a challenge trying to get those to play nice on a roller type rotary.
A chuck rotary would be a whole lot easier.
