As some may have seen im addicted to scratching up my guns , now I am burning them too heres the second try burning them










And the. First try

Nice scratches!

That is really beautiful.

Wow, thats impressive…

Looks good.  Sucks that your engraving thread got archived.  

Looks like you're just doing engraving passes without any cleanup in between and at the end. Every couple cross hatch passes you should run a lower power and slightly faster cleanup pass to remove the layer that looks like a burnt rainbow. Depending on your laser source and lens (assuming 50watt with a 175 or 200 lens given the length of the slide) start with 750 speed / 24 power and increase your frequency setting by roughly double what you use to engrave. That'll give you a nice matte white or light gray finish that'll look a lot better especially when paired with a dark border.

A couple examples from things I've sacrificed to the laser:

Estwing camp hatchet
Attached File


Leatherman
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Video of the engrave and cleanup passes being done on the Leatherman. I didn't do a deep engrave since the handle area was thin, but generally every 3 engraving passes I'll use a cross hatch cleanup pass.

Actually I had the cleaning passes built into the 8 hatches in EZCAD3 and No you dont clean afterwards if you want your color , I got the exact results I expected with no cross hatch in some for the reflected glitter in the green . So if I had run a clean last it would have striped it , just as the white scroll on the one gun shows striped , I intend to bright cut those scroll with my hand gravers where i did do a cleaning pass on that. What type laser and power you running ? Are you building your own patterns/art in adobe illustrator ?

Hard to tell from photos if the burnt rainbow color is from heat affected areas or MOPA settings . I mentioned it because I've run into issues with deep engraves like that getting too hot and making the steel too hard / brittle. I use a 50w Raycus for most of my engraving, I bought it mostly for serial number markings on NFA stuff but started getting into more decorative uses. In hindsight I should have started with a JPT source instead of Raycus just for the higher frequency annealing but I don't have much use for MOPA capabilities. I'm using illustrator for all my vector work and templates and Lightburn to control the laser in place of EZCad 2.

Yeh I ended up with a 2.5d 100w m7 so stuck with ez crash 3  no light burn compatibility  definitely am fascinating to work with the color freqs  you ever see Victors work ?

I haven't heard of Victor, is it an individual or a business? I bought one artwork scroll pack from Fragout when I first started experimenting with the decorative engraving a year or two ago, but since that have been using AI generated stuff.

Victor Wolinsky …. He teaches laser science and specializes in color and easy CAD. Look him up on farce book amazing what the new technology will do today .   Its addictive Im already looking at which laser to get next UV.  ,  laser cutting table or laser welder / metal cleaner ….unsure of getting a lightburn unit 2 many operating systems between the mac at home the windows at the office ….easy crash , Adobe.  Ect How many can you keep in your head lol.  

Some selective color anodizing on a stainless spyderco

Very nice. How long did it take you?

6 -7 hours there abouts …..developing the art work maybe a day

Nice, if I did that it would look like old worn saw blade teeth.

Nice engraving.