I just finished a run of plaques for my school yesterday and was getting some contrast with Poplar but not as much as I would like. The wood was donated to our program, we planed it, cut to size, and routered the edges to make 5x7 plaques.
Lasered at 500 dpi, 80 speed, 80 power on our 60W Spirit GX and put a coat of clear water based urethane on it. Any recommendations would be great to improve contrast. We have tried different speeds and powers. It seems we could slow the laser down and reduce the power a bit to get a darker image. It took about 5 mins / plaque to laser. Is that "normal" for a 60W machine. What would these retail for? Thanks I will try to add a photo later