Questions on a setting for a birch log

Ok first off I am as new as it possibly comes to any of this. I don’t know anything at all about engraving, lasers, or the software. My 2nd practice project is … I have a simple heart and letters to engrave on a small piece of white birch log. Its about 2" in diameter. I do have the rotary but my questions are basically where would I start on the settings and power to do just a simple engraving for an actual log? I have no clue really where to start

From the description I assume you’re trying to engrave onto the end-grain of the wood? As in you can see the rings of the log? Do you have a scrap piece of material you can practice on? Or else is there a “bad” side to the material that you could burn to and plane/sand away?

If you were planning to do this material often you could run a proper powerscale test on the material to really dial-in the settings. But for a one-off it might be easier to just run small tests starting with a reasonable speed/power setting, then adjusting settings and retesting until you get to the desired look.

It looks like from your profile that we have a very similar setup. I’d suggest starting at something like 1000mm/m speed at 30% power and seeing how that works and adjust from there. In general you probably don’t want to run the power over 80% as that reduces the life of the diode. I tend to stay very conservative on that now.

Come back for feedback after you experiment a little.

You can use this attached image to make your tests and when you find a good balance between black and white, keep the best result as a reference for future engraves. Remember that for each material (different wood) a test engrave must be made.
Darker woods burn more easily (require less power and/or higher speed) and lighter woods, the opposite.

Thanks so much for all the help and advice. This is the first practice product.


No this is definitely not something I plan to do often, just something I had on hand to play with to learn the rotary. It’s more of a char than an etch but because of the unevenness and bark still on it turned out much better than I even expected.

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Oh wow. I didn’t realize you were doing this on a rotary. Turned out super cute.

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Good job! Is it a roller or chuck rotary?

It’s just a roller. I mostly want to etch class but now trying to learn tricks for using a diode laser for it to work. Mostly everyone says paint a black acrylic on it first

You may want to review this lengthy topic on the subject:

@richfaraone advocates for using laser transfer tape instead of paints. I haven’t tried it myself.

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