Gantry Style Fiber Color - Sort-of

[Tim Bateson]

I had posted this on the Epilog Facebook group, but wanted to share it here for others to see.

Here is an experiment I ran this weekend with my gantry style Fiber laser. It produced a number of color "shades". Note, the right column is incomplete due to a M2 failure. These are all Anneal markings and do not break or rough up the surface. I find a perfect Black anneal marking on my machine is + .08 out of focus. Pic isn't the best but "shades" of red, green. blue. brown, orange, tan and of-course black & gray are present. I do call them "shades" because it varies a bit depending the angle you look at it. These are NOT the bright colors advertised by MOPA style fibers, but as with this weekend, did come in handy. The customers went nuts over a group of mugs I did this weekend using this technique.

[Gary Hair]

Very nice!

[Mike Null]

I like it. Can you repeat it? How long did the yeti type cups take to run?

[Tim Bateson]

So far, I've only done 1 Bluesh, a couple Reddish/Rust, and a batch of 6 Yellow/Green. Seems consistent, but I'm sure throw another grade of SS in there & the results will likely vary.

For the "R", I got the time down to 13 min & the larger Logo 20 minutes (14min if it wasn't for the name underneath). Not a very profitable process, but nice to have for the few willing to pay extra. If I wanted a lighter Black, like I get with CerMark, I could easily cut several minutes off those times.

[John Kleiber]

I did a Texas flag one time which is red, blue and white. It turned out nice and was really cool, however I soon realized the market would not be willing to pay for the time it takes.

The problem is that there are so many different type of stainless, the testing prior to production run would be a huge pain.

I have had better luck not going for color with Fiber, but instead focusing more on shading to achieve depth and contrast.

-John

[Jacob John]

I had posted this on the Epilog Facebook group, but wanted to share it here for others to see.

Here is an experiment I ran this weekend with my gantry style Fiber laser. It produced a number of color "shades". Note, the right column is incomplete due to a M2 failure. These are all Anneal markings and do not break or rough up the surface. I find a perfect Black anneal marking on my machine is + .08 out of focus. Pic isn't the best but "shades" of red, green. blue. brown, orange, tan and of-course black & gray are present. I do call them "shades" because it varies a bit depending the angle you look at it. These are NOT the bright colors advertised by MOPA style fibers, but as with this weekend, did come in handy. The customers went nuts over a group of mugs I did this weekend using this technique.

That looks great Tim, thanks for sharing.