Need advice on best way to color fill laser engraved plastic

[Donna Holman]

I masked off the area needing the color fill (I'm engraving Rowmark material), using a paper mask. When I laser engraved it, there is residue left from the mask; the residue keeps the paint from adhering to the plastic. I wonder why it leaves a residue??? Is there another type of masking that would be better suited for this? I did a search and couldn't find an answer to this particular problem. Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks so much!

[Joe Pelonio]

The way the laser works, it can engrave thru the mask and into the plastic without removing the adhesive,which melts but does not completely burn away. The best method is to vector cut the mask first, with low power/fast speed, such as 10 power 50 speed, then without removing it from the machine, weed out the letters with tweezers before you run the raster engraving. Make sure the piece is taped in place, you don't want it to move at all during this process. It's tedious and time consuming so you have to charge more for it, but the customer must be willing to pay for custom colors.

[Donna Holman]

Joe, that makes perfect sense. Thanks so much for your advice; I'll give it a try. I love the Creek!