Engraving Or Burning

[boonzo]

Hello All! Although to date I have only turned two pens, I brought one to work to show off and I already have orders coming in! One co-worker would like one, but he has requested a name be "burned" (engraved) into the wood?? Any pointers on what tool to use and how to go about doing this?
Thanks

 

[JimGo]

RB, send it to Mike and Jen Aminson (username here is JenAminson) or Ken Nelson. Both do excellent jobs with laser engraving pens. Their cost is typically pretty low ($5 to $10 per pen, depending on the complexity of the design and other factors), and when you think of how many pens you could make in the time it would take you to engrave it, and how much cleaner the lasered engraving is (at least for me, with my lack of coordination), it's well worth the money. IIRC, links to both company web sites can be found on the home page.

Here are the links:
http://www.writenthings.com/
http://www.kallenshaanwoods.com/

 

[MDWine]

Yep, what he said!! []
I had Mike and Jen do some pens, and Ken did some boxes.
Both do excellent work, and you won't be disappointed with either!

 

[btboone]

Yep, what they said. A laser has much greater resolution than a branding iron, (about .007" spot size) and any graphic or font can easily be done. It works somewhat like a printer, so whatever is drawn up in a drawing or CAD software can be "printed" out on a pen.

 

[low_48]

Actually mine burns at .005" with a 2" focus length lens, .003" with a 1 1/2" focus lens.

 

[btboone]

I think I'm using a 2.5" focal length lens now. As the focal length gets longer the spot size is increased. Shorter focal length lenses have a tighter beam, but will have more of an issue burning deep or on curved surfaces because once it passes the focal point, the beam spreads out again. It's a balancing act. It also probably makes a difference with the starting beam size. Mine is 130 watts, and the beam starts around 3/8" diameter or so. I don't know if all of the sealed CO2 lasers start that same size in diameter.

I used to work with a 1500 watt industrial laser that had a beam about the size of a quarter. I used to test the alignment of the mirrors by placing a copper crosshair in front of the different mirrors and blasting an image onto carboard or wood. It had a push button firing option, and even with the lens removed, could put an inch hole through a board in less than a second. It was pretty impressive. It had a 5" focal length. We used it to cut bike tubes of steel and aluminum.

 

[low_48]

Yikes, 130 watts? I am not worthy!!!!![]
Nice machine BT.

Rich

 

[btboone]

I was originally looking for one to cut metal. This takes at least 800 watts or so. I even checked into building one myself, but homebuilts generally are of lower wattage than the ones we use. I did find a nice 900 watt laser that looked to fit the bill, but I learned that it couldn't interpret graphics. I couldn't find a single laser that would both cut metal and be able to interpret raster based data, like the fonts we use to burn into pens. All the powerful lasers use G-Code like CNC machines. They don't do the back and forth burning mode like a printer, they just follow lines and arcs. Anything that can be burned could be converted to G-Code, but it would be way less efficient. The cost was pretty steep, so I decided to get the highest power sealed CO2 laser I could find. With hindsight, I don't use all of the huge table or need the full power output in the stuff I do. I may check into a powerful metal cutting laser yet. I could also use a jewelery welding laser, which is a pulsed type and has a microscope attachment.

I've always loved lasers. I read about them in middle school and built 4 of them from scratch. I used to make homemade holograms when I was in high school. I made a 4 x 8 foot table of cement that floated on inner tubes to isolate the optics from the shock of the ground for the holographic and interferometric work.[8D] They also work great for turning out streetlights and terrorizing the neighborhood on Haloween.[}]

One can never have too many lasers, that's what I always say.[]

 

[PenWorks]

Some people have all the fun [V] All I want is a small one to make me happy. [] If you still have any of your school built models, send one my way Bruce.

 

[btboone]

I don't have a one of those Anthony. I still have my 7mW Helium Neon one that I terrorize the neighborhood with. I had built a tunable dye laser, a CO2 laser, argon laser, and a led laser. I still have the parts for the CO2 laser and have my holograms, but have no clue what happened to the others. I moved several times in my college days, and I can only imagine they got thrown out by parents or someone else wanting to clean up.

The dye laser was pretty cool. It was only about 4" long and was fired with a flash lamp. I built it on a box of thick acrylic where you could see all of the electronics inside. I had a thumb firing button. It was like something from James Bond.[] The capacitors were really something. They fired extremely fast. They put out something like a million watts (only because they fired so fast.)

The CO2 laser had a 15,000 volt transformer. I still have that. I used a variac to control the power to the transformer and converted it to DC. I have since used the transformer for the PRIMARY loop of a Tesla Coil at a haunted house to put out 4 foot long lightning bolts. Ah, the joys of high voltage on Haloween. Did I mention I used to terrorize the neighborhood on Haloween? []

 

[PenWorks]

Glad my son did not know you at the time and you guys are years apart. He made is first bomb at age 8. The only way I found out, it backfired on him and burned his eye brows off and he had a real bad hair dew. I still worry about that boy [] He has since graduated to making 37MM bombs for his launcher. Did I mention he use to terrorize the neighborhood. You guys could have made a good team []

 

[penhead]

Did I mention I'm probably glad you guys don't live in my neighborhood..[][][][:I]

 

[btboone]

I'm about to go to my 25th High School class reunion. I imagine there will still be stories afloat of the band trip where I brought my laser. From high up in a hotel room, we turned out all the streetlights one by one as a competing band was warming up in the parking lot after dark. [] Then there was the drunks coming out of the hotel bar at 2:00 am that we were messing with. We would beam the keyhole on the car door as they were about to unlock it and get a very surprised reaction. We also messed with people driving on the beach. (Daytona!) Fun times.[)]

 

[coach]

I say use Mike and Jen Amison (jenamison). They are super friendly and do very nice work. Here is a box they lasered for me.

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