Lasering glass

[Kim Maitland]

Has anyone found Laser Tape for a lower price than Laser Bits sells it for? The application I'd be using it for is to laser glass and then sand blast it.

[Bob Tate]

Try http://www.plasticplusawards.com/

I have been buying from there, a lot cheaper. It is the best place I know of. Someone else may be along that can do better.

Plastic Plus does not show a lot on the web site, you have to download their PDF Catalog. And when you do that, look out. Every time I open it I am spending more money because they have such neat stuff.

[Kim Maitland]

Thanks Bob. I will check them out.

[Mike Moffitt]

I've heard many times that the reason glass doens't engrave well is that when the laser hits it, it shatters. On most things, the laser vaporizes the item leaving a nice clean micro hole. On glass, it creates a micro shattering effect. Since the glass is shattering instead of vaporizing you can't get as good of definition out of it. I haven't gotten into blasting yet (though I really want to) but I hear that's the way to go. I think I'm going to get the Badger to try out...anyone have any bad experiences with this miniture blaster?

[Hilton Lister]

I have a GCC Nercury and have found I get the best results, by applying application tape and lasering through it at 1000 dpi, 100% power and 100% speed. All glass does not give consistent results, sometimes the flakes come off in patches and that looks terrible, however, a quick light sandblast before removing the application tape works wonders.

[Rodne Gold]

I never thought about the greyscale , what this does is convert the black to a 1/2 tone pattern which probably DOES laser better - will try it. Great idea.
We use paper based vinyl application tapes for glass blasting , it does resist the abraisive quite well and if you use strips ,its quite easy to apply to complex curves. The laser ablates the paper but leaves a film of adhesive on the glass which is a great indication of when the blast is "just enough" as as soon as it is seen to clear in the cabinet , it's real cheap and VERY easy to remove (wet it). You do have to be careful not ot overdo things with it however.
Considering the laser thermally shocks glass and it fractures cos of that , the easiest way to control the fracture is isolate the thermal part by using wet toilet paper etc to wick away heat. However using a high ppi or dpi kinda negates this as the thermal shocks are too close to each other. How the glass fractures is a function of its makeup and how the various elements expand differentially with the applied heat. Almost impossible to predict what a laser will do on glass
One strategy we adopt is to rub the etched portion with white or silver gulders paste (rub n buff) type thing which tends to whiten and even it out.
Some customers think laser engraved glass is nicer than blasted or is "something different" and sometimes there is no other option but to laser due to detail , qtys , price etc.

[Wil Lambert]

I use these peoples laser tape. http://www.innotape.com/ The product is good and they are only 5-6 blocks from my shop .

Wil

[Tom Majewski]

From all the remarks I read I was ready to buy a sandblaster and laser the masks, but the sandblaster store was closed.

I tried the wet newspaper method and I think it came out quite nice. Getting a picture of it without glare was harder. 50% speed, 65% power on a 40w pinnacle.

[Tom Majewski]

The attachment didn't take. Here's a link to the pics.

www.thelasercutter.com/vase1.jpg
www.thelasercutter.com/vase2.jpg