Rotary attachment for Trotec

[Robert Tepper]

I finally broke down and purchased a rotary attachment. I have a few questions and I hope someone can help. On the left side of the rotary there is a sliding protractor, is this to level the glass or bottle?

Do most of you use painters tape to test the engraving before putting a wet paper towel down and engraving.

The few wine glasses that I attempted this weekend had a taper to them. I found that they engraved less deep at the top and radius of the glass. What do you use to give a contrasting color to the engraved area?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Robert

[Kev Williams]

I have no idea what a Trotec cylinder attachment looks like or does--

YES on the painters tape. I use a low power-fast speed- very low res settings just to hurry up the process, but painters tape tells all- placement, size, alignment...

As for glass taper, again, I don't know Trotec- But I've rigged mine so that I can angle the unit so that the side of the glass is as close to parallel to the X rail as possible. Another issue with tapers is, the farther down the glass you go, the more condensed the engraving will be because the machine can't compensate for the narrower diameter. You have to do that yourself.

As for ROUNDED glassware, sometimes you're stuck with making multiple runs at different focus points. This works okay with text running around the radius, but tall logos or graphics can be a pain. The best fix for tall engraving on rounded glasses is to only go as tall as focus allows, and make customers aware of this. Longer lenses can help somewhat, but at the cost of high detail. However, glass is pretty forgiving...