I Started a thread “New tile engraving method” on here but don’t know how to link you to it. I’m 84 and a bit slow with these things. If you can find it you will have loads of other members views on the subject.
PVA is a cheap glue used in schools for craft work. Also one of the best wood glues available. Totally safe as is titanium dioxide which is used in toothpaste, food as well as paint. Let me know if you can’t find the thread and I will list the mixing instructions here.
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Thanks Ron. Found it. Are you a Brit? (glue gave it away… made in Cheshire
Yes born and bread in London. I’m a true cockney. Now spending my last days in Sunny Suffolk. What part of the world do you come from?
Brady street, Whitechapel born and bred. That is a strange coincidence eh? Very small world. OK, sunbeam, we must have lived within a stone’s throw of each other. 
I now live in Bedfordshire but have travelled and worked extensively around the world. I am retired and in my 70s and off to help a mate out in Hungary at the end of October hence my Hungarian language lessons.
So you are on my doorstep. 
I did my 2 years in the army in Bicester and Lived in Essex most of my life…
Pretty much.
I am 26 miles from Bicester in the sunny town of Leighton Buzzard. I was based in West Moors, Ferndown for my army service
Another Leighton Buzzard resident here. Actually Linslade but it’s close enough!
Hi Marcus, are you into white tile etching?
Hi Ron. Not yet, although I’ve been wanting to have a go since I got my laser almost a year ago! I’ve got some white tiles as well as some PVA and TiO₂ ready. I also plan to try some other metal compounds such as copper oxide and/or silicate to see whether I can achieve different colours. I might also try some ready-made colours intended for ceramics to see whether that works too.
Actually, while I’m here: Your recipe specifies 1 Tbsp TiO₂, I’m sure it’s not that critical but is that level or heaped, or would you happen to have that in grams? Cheers.
No it is not critical as I tend to just use a full or slightly over full spoonful. Having applied both one and two coats to a tile, it didn’t make any difference. I don’t know how much is contained in the paint others use, but I suspected I’m getting a higher concentration in my mix. Most important thing is to make sure the titanium is well mixed and straining it is the best way to prevent clumps forming.
Hope you have some success with ýour experiments in colour.
Ok thanks, it’s always worth asking. I’ve got some fine nylon mesh that I’ll use for straining it so that should do nicely. I also have some paint strainers (for my 3D printer resin), however they’re made of paper and nylon mesh so they might fall apart due to the aqueous nature of the PVA!
Thanks, I’ll let the forum know if I get anywhere (or not) with the colour experiments.
Thanks and well done for coming up with the new method by the way 
Great topis and info!
I’ve done a few white tile engravings with my ORTUR laser master 2 pro 5.5 watt laser and have used White Rustoleum Painters Touch 2x in both Flat and Gloss. I had a very difficult time finding these paints so I contacted Rustolem who told me that they are having problems getting their “ingredients” for the types of paints. The key ingredient is titanium dioxide and these 2 paints have between 10-25% titanium dioxide which is what we need for great engravings on tile. The higher the titanium dioxide content the better the engraving! Why,I have no idea!
Not all Rustoleum Painters Touch 2x paints are high in titanium dioxide though. I have a list of paints that gives there percentages of titanium dioxide but I can’t for the life of me remember where I got it. I’m almost positive I found it on a laser forum though.
This is the list I have,
I’m not sure the photo I took will appear and being a computer vegetable at age 78 who knows where it may have ended up?
Hope this helps a bit,
Tom
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Thank you Thomas for this super useful information. I see from that table that I have only ever used the paints with 2.5 ~ 10% TiO₂. I suspect that the paint could be anything which prevents the laser beam from being reflected by the shiny ceramic surface. The TiO₂ is probably the substance that is burnt along with the paint and turns black under heat. The heat causes micro fractures in the ceramic coating of the tile and the burnt TiO₂ can stick to the roughened surface. I am sure someone with some real technical knowledge can chime in and helps us all to understand the process.
Well Jeff your reply is about as technical as I can understand! LOL
By the way,My brother-in-laws family name is Cable!
Small world !
Tom
Hmmm… you will find the map to the family will on this island… [Pulau Kelapa Dua] I believe it has been renamed to Simping Island. It is quite small so finding the will should be easy.
Map to the treasure
Tourist info
Now back to business. I have engraved/etched glass (no samples, sorry) wood ceramics and slate. Some examples follow. The jpeg images do not do the original files justice
Norton ceramics.
Slates engraving
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Thank you, great result
That list of paints is realy helpful. I had to guess the amount of titainium and now I can aim to match the 25% concentration. Back to work experimenting.
If my old brain is working correctly, from the above I have worked out that my PVA mix has approximately 10% of titanium. This seems to fit in with the NWT paint method. Based on this I think I need to keep the titanium amount the same but reduce the PVA content and add a bit more water. Total volume seems about right. Will test this later as I have run out of tiles.
I’m working on the bases 1 tablespoon = 14.5 ml. So 100 ml PVA plus two tablespoons water (29 mi) is 129 mi divided by 10 = around 1 tablespoon of titanium. Any young mathematicians out there?
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I’ve made a batch according to your recipe but I haven’t tried it out yet. Using a measuring spoon I measured out 1Tbsp (UK) of TiO₂. As I prefer to use weight measurements I weighed it at 10.8g. I’ve done a quick Google and found the bulk density of TiO₂ powder quoted as 0.77g/cm³. My measuring spoon says 15ml but various sources quote 14.21ml and a few say 17.76ml! I’ll go with the 14.2 figure I think so that would make my spoonfull equivalent to 0.76g/cm³ which is pretty close to the quoted figure. I’ve added 0.5ml of UN90/90 surfactant so I’ll have to see whether that’s enough to reduce the surface tension sufficiently. I’ve also added some food colouring in an attempt to make it easier to see where I’ve painted and how uniform the coating is. I’ve attached a small spreadsheet which might be useful. I’ve had to append ‘.txt’ to the filename to enable me to upload it so just delete the false extension once you’ve downloaded it.
White Tile Laser Engraving Recipe (Ron Clarke method).xlsx.txt (11.2 KB)
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