Cutting/engraving exotic woods

[Len Laviolette]

I have had some difficulty engraving dense exotic wood. Ebony and rosewood in particular. An fellow luthier said there is a product similar to a skin or membrane that facilitates having a clean, crisp edge to the cut when engraving this material. In particular it is so very dense that even a high setting on my 80W D-Win just scorches around the cut rather than going deeper. Even if I program more than one pass it seems to not help.

Does anybody have any ideas on this topic? Thanks

Len Laviolette

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Len;
Welcome to the Creek
Engraving any of the exotics such a ebony, rosewood, coco bolo- those that have a high oil content-are very difficult to engrave and cut. You have to run at low speed and high power and then you run the risk of flaming and fire (I once melted part of my laser head cutting ebony!!).
An alternative is to run multiple cuts at a higher speed and change the focus between cuts. You still won't get a clean, crisp edge and I don't know of any membrane matrerial that would facilitate such a cut.
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Rich Harman]

Hi Len,

Nothing to add regarding cutting exotic woods but I am sure someone will will be on you about linking to your website. You might want to remove it before a mod does. :-)

[Dee Gallo]

Hi Len, Welcome to the Creek! I did remove your website, as it is against the rules as mentioned by Rich. I'm sure if you search through the many threads on exotic woods, you will find that nobody has much luck with ebony or rosewood. Take the advice from George, he is a wood expert.

cheers, dee

[Lee DeRaud]

...I don't know of any membrane material that would facilitate such a cut.

My guess is he was talking about something to keep the inevitable smoke/oil residue off the surface.
Note also that it was a "fellow luthier" saying this, so he's probably dealing with thin material if he's doing any cutting. I've cut 1/4" rosewood, but it takes a lot of cleanup afterward.

[Len Laviolette]

Thanks for the tip. I meant no disrespect.

[Len Laviolette]

Thanks George.

[Len Laviolette]

Thanks Lee.

[Chuck Stone]

In addition to what George said, I do engrave rosewoods often (not so much ebony,
as it is ready to crack and split before it even hits our shores) and one thing that
seems to help is washing it down with acetone immediately before engraving. It
gets rid of the worst of the oils at the surface, at least temporarily. After a little
while they will migrate right back to where they were.
Not a miracle cure, but it helps.

[Kev Williams]

Sometimes, ya just need good old fashioned motor driven cutter tools!

[Lee DeRaud]

Sometimes, ya just need good old fashioned motor driven cutter tools!

Yup. It's a very common meme that, just because you have a very expensive tool available, it's the best tool for the job. (Especially if it's a new very expensive tool. )

If you need 0.001" precision, sure, use the laser, but most of the time you don't. If the laser won't handle the material you need to cut, either because of size, thickness, or chemical incompatibility, rough cut it with a bandsaw or jigsaw and then trim it with a router: the laser is really good at cutting router templates from MDF or acrylic.

[Michele Welch]

I know I'm way late to this thread party, but I just received a job to raster out both ebony and rosewood and inlay with either Abalam (?) or an acrylic version turquoise. My only option is to raster out the ebony or rosewood because it's an intricate design (a signature). Any suggestions?? I have a 45 w Full Spectrum Laser.

[Kevin Gregerson]

Air assist and or a noble gas is your friend. Higher power helps too. I've run rosewood with good luck at 150w. But not very many folks have access to that kind of power.

[Mike Null]

In my opinion you'll have only bad luck with ebony and not much better with rosewood.

[Michael Reilly]

I tried cutting Ebony for a friend last year, it just turned to charcoal. A client of ours that does guitar work said he's heard people use Vulcanized Fiberboard in place of ebony. Apparently once you lacquer over it, it looks the same. It does cut nicely, but does look like paper chipboard in the form he brought it to us.