Lightly Touch Painted Brass

[Tracey Bakewell]

Ok, so I want to do these plaques tomorrow, the painted brass ones from JDS. I want to lightly pass over the plate first with a light engraving so I barely scratch the paint, but not take it all the way off. It will be like a subtle image behind the actual engraving on the plate.

Anyone done that yet? If so, can you suggest settings? I was either going to choose a gray that is a % of black, or just assign green the right settings for this effect.

I hope I am making sense?

I have a 50 watt laser.

Thanks!
Tracey

[Mike Null]

Tracey

Your plan is what I use. I don't recall my percentages of gray but they were relatively low. You will get a screened look.

[Martin Boekers]

Not sure if you do dye sub are not, since you are looking at other techniques
I thought I'd toss this out.

There is a dye sub metal that will engrave gold or silver, (I think I got it from JDS)

I got a few sheets to play with to add a variety of textures to, then engrave,
like stone, marble, wood etc, haven't had a chance to work with it yet.

I use the plain white sheets (just sublimatable) to get a color that closer
matches the resin bronze statues I use. It makes a BIG difference than
engraving a plate the gold doesn't match with. It just takes a bit of testing
to get the fill to a nice color.

You may want to experiment with wood plates, I do quite a few. Typically
.125 Alder or Cherry with wood you can achieve different levels and
contrasts.

Marty

[Dan Hintz]

Tracey,

You will more than likely have inconsistent results with trying to find juuuust the right power to lightly push through the paint. You'll be much happier in the long run if you use the desired gray setting.

[Joe Pelonio]

rather than risk destroying fairly expensive materials, you might try buying dome inexpensive sheet metal plates, as sold at the borgs for roof flashing,
spray with rattle can paint and experiment on that first. The settings will not necessarily be identical but will get you a good close starting point and you can see if the effect is what you want with the background vs the actual engraving.

[Mike Null]

this isn't rocket science. It's quite easy to do and repeatable. Just find the right shades of gray to do the job.