I am pretty new to laser engraving. I'm using a 50w Epilogue Helix at my local makerspace. For Christmas I'd like to make some keychains for family members. So I bought some Cermark 6018 metal marking tape and these gold and nickel clad dog tags from chewbarka:

https://www.chewbarka.net/goldnickel...clad-p-72.html

I set the laser to 5% speed, 100% power. My design came out great on a piece of stainless steel scrap metal. But when I tried to engrave the dog tags, the cermark washed almost entirely off, leaving just a very faint ghosted image. I have a bunch of questions, and I would really appreciate any input anyone has.

First, has anyone gotten the cermark metal marking tape to work with gold or nickel clad items like this? If so, do you have any recommendations on what I could do differently to make it work? Is there some way I should be changing the substrate, applying the tape, changing the speed/power settings, etc?

Second, has anyone gotten other cermark/thermark products to work with this type of finish? If so, is there a different product you'd recommend? I see that cermark 6038 is recommended for smooth and polished metals. And the thermark site says it recommends thermark LMM14 over 6038. Does anyone know if one of these would actually work better?

Third, are there other products that you'd recommend instead? I see that chewbarka also has "satin finish" stainless steel dog tags, and laserbits has stainless steel dog tags. I'd prefer something with a nice finish, since this is for a gift, but I understand that smooth finishes might be causing my problems.

Thanks so much for any thoughts you might have!