Would you opt for soft wood such as pine or a harder wood such as walnut or poplar. Reason for asking I tried to use pine on the CO2. It engraved fine, and I used a mask over the wood prior to burning.
Then I took the piece out, and lightly have it 3 coats of black spray paint. When I removed the tape I noticed some bleeding of the black tape outside of the engraved area. I didn’t do a deep engrave, but used my orbital sander to remove most of the bleeding or wicking.
For those that produce wooden signs with your lasers, and paint to fill in the letters, is one wood better over another to use? How do you prevent that bleed effect?
Sanded, Deep egraved (.030"-.060"), stiff brush and air to remove soot from engraving, clear coat (brush on, work into cuts, blow out details and blot excess), then epoxy, flatten, finish sand, top coat, polish, wax.
Skipping the clear/seal lets the color fill wick into the wood fibers and crevices. Some paint pigments are worse than others. I don’t risk it anymore.
I have some Mylands Cellulose Sanding Sealer I’m going to throw on this test piece of pine that I have. Going to do that today, and let it set over night, then mask tomorrow and engrave then paint.
I have never tried masking prior to engraving as I am concerned about weeding and adhesive residue. It’s on my list of trial techniques, tho.
If I have a lot of smoke staining, I use a brush and compressed air, masking film to lift it off like a sticky lint/pet hair roller, and/or wash it with alcohol.
Rich (LA Hobby Guy) swears by sanding sealer before engraving. I haven’t tried that either. I want to try that too.
I coated this pine piece twice this evening. I’m going to mask tomorrow a.m, then engrave, and paint. Time will tell. I’ll show the results here as well.
Well, step 2 complete. Engraved fairly deep. Removed masking tape. I’m going to run it through the planer today, and see what happens. I used red paint cause it was handy. I’m mainly interested in how to either stop the wicking and/or how easy it is to remove. This pine had wood sealer applied twice.
I don’t see the wicking that I saw before when I tried this without the wood sealer as well.
